


Nature vs Nurture

by Lukas17, sirsable



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Cloning Blues, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Multi, Slice of Life, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22946983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukas17/pseuds/Lukas17, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirsable/pseuds/sirsable
Summary: On the surface, creating an army of super soldiers seemed smart, and would have meant Hydra could have multiple assassin's at their disposal. But with their resources dwindling the project is canceled, and the results disposed of. One subject, however, was smuggled out. Bucky’s MIA, and the kid will always have a target on his back. It’s not how Steve imagined having a kid but at least in the 21st he can google exactly how to not kill a child.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 55
Collections: Marvel Rare Pair Bang 2019





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: In this first chapter there is explict mention of someone killing infants. This happens only at the beginning and will not really be referenced in the future. If you'd like to skip this then ctl+f the phrase "There was no sound on the drive there." and you should be taken to the scene after this all happens. Stay safe out there kids.

Masters in Early Childhood Education didn’t get one far. Some took what they could get.

Maria Falkner woke up at five A.M every day. Shower. Make up. Breakfast. Pack her lunch in her bag. Leave home by six thirty. It took her half an hour to get to her work place in her two year old Acura. Come Monday she wouldn’t have to worry about it at all. She wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

Most of the other cars parked in the lot looked a lot nicer than hers. Most foreign, with their American plates screwed on top of the plates sent in from Europe. The auto shop was busy as usual. And she ignored it, as usual. Passing by the customers and heading to the back of the shop marked administration. It didn’t matter what others thought, they often weren’t paying enough attention to care what she did.

In the back she rested her thumb on the closet door handle. After a second the door let out a soft beep and opened up to a silver staircase that went down. She walked down the flight down to the lab hidden underground.

She didn’t know the various other projects in production, and she didn’t want to. Her eyes never strayed to look at notes or prototypes. She had an assignment already. Straight, second left, then third right. Down the hall. Room 0038.

Her keycard opened the door. Inside were ten cribs. All in a U. Homing ten identical babies. All asleep. At least, at first glance, all of them were. Number 04 always was the first to wake, this morning he was earlier than usual.

He’ll do.

Between the various beds were little carts with supplies. In the corner a cart was stocked with ten different tubes, ten bottles of formula, and ten vials of clear liquid. First a she changed each feeding tube for the ten babies. Then she took the formula, dumped just a bit out, and put the clear liquid in each bottle. That mixture went into each feeding pump, which she then turned on.

Sometimes one would wake up while they were fed. But that would not happen today. Instead all remained silent, and 04 was quickly coaxed back to sleep. His eyes closed and his breathing slowed.

Once their bottles were empty she pulled the boxes from a cabinet and lowered them each into an individual box which went on a trolley with her day bag on top. Down the hall to the second left was the incinerator. One by one the boxes went into the fire: one, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Number four. The last left. There were no cameras in this room, they didn’t need visual proof they were burning anything important. Number four was slipped into her day bag. Covered by a pair of jeans and her swimsuit.

She returned the trolley and headed for the stairs. Up then out of the shop towards her car. There were no clock-in sheets, nothing to track hours for pay. She’d only needed to inform her supervisor that what she’d been asked to do was so horrible, she might need a day to recover.

Her day bag went in the passengers foot area. The engine started like normal. She turned out of the parking lot, driving just a bit slower than usual, then hooked onto the freeway. Washington was an hour and a half drive, but she didn’t turn on the music to distract from the monotonous drive. She was aware of her heart beating hurriedly, unexpectedly. Everything had gone so smoothly she could hardly believe it.

There was no sound on the drive there. Not from the baby and not from her. It is possible she gave him too much, and he was just like his brothers. If that were the case, at least he was proof.

She parked in the park across from his apartment building. It was nice. Certainly nice enough for 04. If he chose to keep him. A note. She should leave one. She pulled an old pad of paper from a hotel she’d stashed in her glove compartment and ran a pen along the edge until it produced ink. Short. Concise. Just enough information so he understood, but not so much that he could follow a trail of breadcrumbs.

They tried to recreate him.

Perhaps too vague. But it’d do. She opened the box to slip it under the baby’s body. The sleeping baby's body. She saw his fingers twitch as the drug wore off.

He was light. Not too difficult to carry up the stairs to set out front of the door. Just a step or two away. So as to avoid getting stepped on. And then she turned and left. Either he’d come out and find the baby or the baby would scream and attract attention. By the time that happened she’d hopefully be in another state.

Neither happened. After half an hour, one Sam Wilson headed up the steps to find the baby, still sleeping, in front of the door. A very weird sight indeed. He hauled the box up and furiously rang the doorbell until it was answered by a very tired looking Captain America with a giant bruise on his left cheek.

“What’s up?” He yawned. “... Is that a baby?”

“What else could it be? Why do you have a baby in front of your apartment?”

“I don’t know! Is it yours?”

“Very funny. Move, I’m putting him on the couch.”

The box went on the couch, jostling the baby awake. This was not a smart move, given the fact that the baby was awoken so rudely he decided to return the favor and immediately launching into a scream so loud dogs outside barked.

“What the hell Sam?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Sam tried to rock the box back and forth in an effort to calm the baby, unaware that the boy was reeling from a few side effects of the drug he’d ingested just hours ago. He was hungry and had a tummy ache. But the two men in the room could not begin to understand that, and thus they wouldn’t be able to stop the screaming. The rocking didn’t work, so Sam, very reluctantly, reached in and scooped the baby up. He hadn’t really taken care of a child before, but he did know that the jiggle thing people sometimes did was supposed to be comforting.

“Make it stop!” Steve’s concussion was not happy with their new screaming friend, and he almost wanted to send Sam out until he managed to calm the baby down.

“I’m trying!”

“What is all this screaming?” yelled Sharon, head poking out from the apartment across from Steve’s.

“It’s a baby!” Steve answered.

“Whose baby?”

“I don’t know!”

After a moment Sharon came out to try and help calm the baby down. Which did all of nothing. Her rocking couldn’t calm the baby down, any more than Sam’s.

“Maybe it’s hungry?” Sharon said. “Do you have milk or something?”

Steve checked his fridge, but when he tried to pour the stuff into a measuring cup all that came out was a thick, foul smelling sludge.

“Come on man.” Sam sighed. Which, fair.

By then other neighbors were not happy. Sir Aaron on the floor above him banged his cane on the floor, as if that would help anyone. Some people shut their windows or left their apartments entirely. Finally, after thirty minutes of struggle, Teresa from the floor below came up with a bottle and her years of experience. After some coaxing the baby took the bottle and finally stopped screeching.

“Just bring it back whenever,” she said, leaving to tend to her own children.

“Why would someone leave an entire baby in front of your door?” Sharon asked, struggling to both hold the baby in the correct position to feed him.

“As opposed to half of one?” Sam asked.

“You know what I mean.”

“It’s probably some weird stalker or something.”

Steve's been left some strange things that’s for sure. Though normally those were baked into cupcakes. He learned pretty quickly not to consume unwrapped treats left for him.

“Really? You want to just write this one off and say it’s a stalker?”

“Yeah. Unless Steve’s got a side hobby I don’t know about.”

“No, I have not knocked anyone up,” Steve quickly said, before either of them could hang onto that statement.

“You sure?”

“Yes. Very sure.”

“Maybe someone confused your door for someone else’s?” Sharon asked. “We should interview everyone in this building at least.”

“Do all of that?” Sam asked. “Let’s just drop it off at a safe station or something. He’s young enough.”

“No, we should look into it.”

“Why? You think the kid’s got a bomb on him?”

The question was said in jest, but they did end up poking at the baby’s stomach to make sure there wasn’t anything hard swallowed down that might pose a problem. He was, thankfully, bombless, but the box posed a bigger problem. Not because it did have a bomb, but because Sam found the note crumbled in the corner.

And then things got a bit more serious. Sharon forced the baby into his hands while she called Fury. Steve’s hands shook both from the concussion and from the very dark realization that he might be holding... something. Maybe some random kid. Maybe Bucky’s kid. His concussion became unbearable, beating at his head and making his hands shake even as he held tightly. His stomach tightened and squeezed at the bile.

“Fury’s asking for DNA,” Sharon said, coming back with a small plastic thing and some alcohol wipes. She took a sample from the baby’s foot, which launched him into another cry session. Though this time quieter and more manageable. Leaving Steve alone to try and calm him down while Sharon did the leg work in dealing with whatever Fury and intel wanted. He kept rocking and rocking until the baby calmed down again. But that may be less a testament to his baby skills and more to the fact that this child’s day had been nearly as rough as Steve’s last night.

An hour later Sam was back with some formula, a bottle, a few blankets, and a small carrier to be used as a rest area until they could figure out what to do with the kid. The baby fell asleep in the carrier, an act that felt like it took longer than it actually did. Somehow this Friday was the longest of his life, and he couldn’t believe it was barely lunchtime.

Once things calmed down it was a waiting game. And wait they did, until an agent stopped by. Not one Steve recognized by name, but with a familiar enough face. He casually strolled into his apartment carrying a briefcase.

“Sounds like you’ve had a busy day.” He said casually as he set the bag on the counter. “Agent Lewis.”

“That’s one way to describe it.” He sighed, Sharon had dipped for a bit and Sam was trying to focus on the game. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem.” He pulled out a file from the briefcase. “This is the initial report. Expect it to be bigger.”

At a glance the report was rather thorough for such short notice, but Steve didn’t open it up to read just yet. Instead he passed it over for Sam to read so at least one of them could say that they did.

“What did the lab results say?” Sam asked.

“Will you let me talk?” Lewis replied. “They matched. 99.28%. Clone.”

“Wouldn’t it be 100% then?” Steve asked.

“Apparently not, nerds said you don’t get a perfect match with clones.”

If Steve were any more tense his body would cave in on itself and slip his own skin off. Actually that sounded pleasant about now. Perhaps he should look into full skin peels.

“And?” Sam asked.

“And what?”

“Do we know why they were cloning him? Or why he was left on Steve’s porch.”

“No. Shockingly enough no one in intel is psychic. What was he left with?”

Steve fished the note out of the trash, a sight that prompted Agent Lewis to roll his eyes as if Steve were a child. He pulled what looked to be a child’s chemistry kit from his bag and tested the paper.

“Is it a bomb?” Sam asked.

“I’m not even answering that.” Lewis crumpled the paper in his hand and tossed it back into the garbage Steve had thrown the thing in.

The box the boy had been left in was fairly similar to a shoe box, and seemed to be made of the same stuff. Lewis scrapped at the sides with his knife and peeled them away. There was nothing hiding at the seams or under the black outer layer. So no surprise attack.

“I’ve been instructed to take him.” Lewis announced. “Labs has other tests they want to run.”

Steve felt very uneasy watching Lewis pick up the baby in his carrier. He supposed he should really sit down and process why. It probably had something to do with the fact that this clone was supposed to be Bucky.

“He’ll be fine.” Sam said. Of course Sam could see his feelings on this. “Just let Fury do what he needs to do.”

Right. He should do that. Let others do what needed to be done, and trust that it would be done properly. He could do that. Maybe.

Thankfully Sam spent the night. Which he was originally going to do anyways, but now it was a rest and watch TV night rather than the more fun night Steve had wanted. Sam, instead, ordered take-out and put on the T.V. to a channel doing reruns of I Love Lucy. He liked that show, but it was hard to laugh after dealing with what was probably every emotion a person could experience within the past eight hours.

“Just rest tonight.” Sam said. “We’ll make the hard decisions tomorrow.”

But he didn’t want to make any decisions. Battle plans were one thing, but every decision he made from this point onwards snowballed. He could look at himself in the mirror after losing a soldier, hard choices had to be made, but would he be able to look at himself in the mirror tomorrow? Could he look Bucky in the eye?

The concussion helped him get to sleep despite the headache it was also causing. Never before had he been so happy to have gotten hit by a blunt object. He was happy with it until the sun streamed in through the window and he had to get up. Maybe he could put off all his responsibilities until tomorrow when he was healed. But he probably wouldn’t.

Fury texted him at around noon. We’re Done. Which he took as orders to head over to the main base, take the stairs up towards the intel group, pass all of the computer guys towards the wet labs and medical area. That was where they took injured informants and captives. A nurse lead him to a room with a bed that had chains for restaining prisoners hanging off the edge and the baby smack in the middle. Two nurses were singing "The Itsy, Bitsy, Spider" song quite the sight, to be honest, but it looked like he was being better taken care of by them than what Steve could at the moment, so he left the baby in their care while he had a talk with Fury. Whose office was, of course, on the opposite end of the campus at the top of the elevator.

The sun was high in the sky, and the way the chair had been positioned made the glare hit his face in such a way that he was uncomfortable.

“Well good news, Bucky has given birth to a healthy baby boy.”

“Har har.”

“That was funny, wasn't it?” Fury chuckled to himself. “He was not given any performance enhancing drug we know of. They didn’t put any sort of tracking device under his skin. No mind control that we can detect. He’s free to go home with you.”

“You took him overnight just to tell me you have nothing.”

“And be happy we did. Now you can take your new bundle of joy home without worrying he’s Hydra's Manchurian Candidate.”

“Why are you assuming he’s coming home with me?”

“Because I know you. You may sit in that chair and say you’re considering dropping him off at some police station. But I know better. So let’s just cut to the part where you tell me you’re keeping him.”

“That’s a pretty big assumption.”

“Fine then, tell me you’re not keeping him.”

Steve’s jaw tightened. He wanted to throw a tantrum, and feel insulted that Fury was claiming to know him like that. They weren’t friends. Fury was his superior not his father and he shouldn’t be right about these kinds of things.

But. he can’t say that. He cannot look Fury in the eye and say he will take this kid to a drop off zone and walk away. If not asked this question so pointedly, he might’ve gotten close. Steve certainly would’ve made it outside a hospital or a police station. Maybe he would’ve even talked to someone about it. But then he would’ve turned back around and kept this kid in his one room apartment.

Fury smirked, “I thought so.”

Fuck Fury.

“I suggest you ask for a copy of the leave benefits from HR before you go. And given the unique nature of this adoption, I’m going to open a case file. Ongoing. Just so everyone’s on the same page in case something happens. Dismissed.”

Four weeks paid, sixteen weeks total. Steve wasn’t worried about the money, but at least he could take the time off because he had no idea what he was doing.

“Oh, he's just a little angel,” a red headed nurse said, cooing one last time as she handed the baby off to him. With the baby came a stack of papers he needed, to make sure everything was official. Forms for social security and a birth certificate amongst others. They crammed his free hand full of pamphlets about early childhood illness and vaccines. He didn’t have a pocket to put them in so he stuffed them in the carrier next to the baby and got a ride home since he couldn’t put a baby carrier on the back of a motorcycle. Once at home he deposited the baby on the couch and sat down.

He was way too underprepared for this.

Where did he even start first? Was there a book for this? There really should be books for this. He remembered people taking care of babies back in the '30s, but he hadn’t exactly paid attention. Was it different? The '30s versus today. How much cod oil did a baby need? How much sun?

The internet would help was his initial thought. But googling: baby left him overwhelmed with thoughts of sleep therapy and skin contact and soon after starting he found himself distracted by the actual baby in front of him who began fussing.

When babies fussed it meant something was wrong, but Steve could not, for the life of him, think of what might be wrong. Was he hungry? Thirsty? He’d never seen a baby drink anything but milk, but maybe they did and he just didn’t know.

His struggle was interrupted by a knock, and like opening the doors of heaven Steve saw Sam standing in the hallway. He hadn’t asked for Sam to visit, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It took both of them to go down a checklist and realize that the baby had a wet diaper that probably should’ve been changed twenty minutes ago. They managed to get it done on the floor. After watching three different YouTube videos on the subject.

“Why do people even make these videos?”

“Aren’t you happy they did?”

“Yes but why?”

“For people like you... I think it’s backwards.”

It took him three tries to get the steps exactly right. The baby quieted and it was Sam who suggested that they sit down and start going over items needed, getting a bottle ready so Steve could browse while Sam occasionally interjected with his opinion.

Steve didn’t really like online shopping, it was so fundamentally unlike how he used to shop that it felt like a game, but he needed a lot of things and he didn’t exactly have the trunk space.

“What makes a good crib?” He asked.

“Four walls.”

“Great I’ll get them all.”

“Get one with good reviews.”

Only in the future would there be hundreds of baby cribs to choose from. There were millions of things that were supposed to make this easier: specialty bottles, millions of different types of formula, thousands upon thousands of baby clothes to choose from. It was hard to separate what would take up space and what they would actually need. The nurses’ pamphlets said one thing, and the product said another. He was as if the pamphlets were constantly trying to tell him “don’t worry, this action is normal”, and the products were trying to tell him “if he does this action then his life is ruined and he won’t make his full potential”. The worst emotional whiplash he’d ever experienced

“How old is he?” Sam asked.

He hadn’t even looked at that. Steve dug through the pile of literature to pull out the medical information they’d taken down for the baby. The name square said John Doe and the sections for information on the parents were all left blank. Under that, it stated things like weight and height, along with other physical appearances. Listed even lower, several vitals like pulse rate and blood pressure, numbers he didn’t really understand. Under age it said ~4 months. A number which genuinely surprised him.

“Why would they start a project and then end it?”

“What?”

“He’s four months. They only spent four months on this before deciding to stop it. At least on him specifically.”

“You think they have more?”

God he hoped not. “I dunno. But Fury said there’s no tracker on him. If no one comes looking for him that means they ended the project. Right?”

“Probably.”

“So why end so early? Only four months.”

“Well he’s four months, but then there’s the nine months gestation. And all the planning. They might have worked on making him for years.”

“But then why give up on a successful project you’ve worked on for so long?”

Sam shrugged. “Depends on your idea of success, I suppose. I mean, you’d need to train ‘im. And then you’d need to wait for him to be old enough. The cost outweighs the rewards.”

“But if they waited, then they have a new soldier.”

“But we’ve been wiping them out. Hydra doesn’t have the presence it once did, and they can’t just hide a wrecking ball from the world like they used to.”

He would’ve preferred to live without the thought that this might’ve partly been because of him. Well, it was probably better off everything happening this way rather than Hydra keep him.

His online shopping cart was already boasting a terrifyingly large number in the “subtotal” field when he got a call. Sam looked pretty frustrated; he’d been trying to get the kid asleep for half an hour and the boy was not budging, so he kicked the phone over and Steve quickly answered it.

“Heard you gave birth.”

“I will hang up on you.”

“Things not going well with the newborn? You want me to come over?” Natasha was clearly joking, but if he said yes she’d be there.

“No, Sam’s here.”

“Good, he’s probably better at it.” She took a long slurp from a drink. “You have a name?”

Fuck.

“No. Natasha I’m lucky to have pants on right now.”

Sam snorted.

“Put me on speaker let’s brainstorm.”

He set the phone on the coffee table where the entire apartment could best hear her voice.

“Alright. I’ll start.” She said. “Nathan.”

“Nathan?” He wasn’t expecting that one. “Why Nathan?”

“It’s the masculine of Natasha.”

“... Okay, you know how people put letters on their plans? That’s a solid Q if I ever heard it.”

“Wow rude.”

“Why not just James?” Sam said. He draped a blanket over the handle of the carrier to keep the baby asleep.

“I’m not going to name him after Bucky.”

“Ivan.”

“No.”

“Paul.”

“No.”

“You’re going to have to be flexible Rogers.”

“Are you giving up now Romonoff? There’s millions of names out there.”

There was some muttering on the phone before Natasha returned. “Clint said to name him Clint.”

“Clint knows?”

“I told him.”

“I’m not naming him Clint.”

“What about Clinton!” Clint yelled in the background.

“The list of no’s gets longer.”

“Jacob.”

“Aaron,” Sam said.

“No.”

“Name him after you.”

“God, no.”

“Did Bucky have ideas?” Clint asked.

Steve’s stomach clenched. “Bucky doesn’t know yet.”

“Oh.” Natasha said. “When you gonna tell him?”

“Look, I think the baby’s up. I should go.”

Neither Natasha nor Clint said anything when he reached over and shut the phone off. He then turned back to his shopping, determined to not think about that.

“I suppose.” Sam said slowly. “That is something you should think about.”

“Not today.”

“Okay.”

Bucky was in Wakanda; had been for a while. Steve visited sometimes, and Bucky occasionally took a trip to the states to visit him. He was making progress. Progress that might be reversed if he found out Hydra was screwing around with his genetics. Steve didn’t exactly know what kind of therapy he was getting, or what exact issues it focused on. He supposed one didn’t need to be horribly traumatized to find the idea disturbing. Hell there were people out there who wouldn’t even donate blood because of stuff like this.

A problem for tomorrow. Today’s problem was watching the horrific hit to his bank account when he clicked confirm. He’d have to wait around all day tomorrow for his things, there was no way the woman at the front desk would be happy to see the literal pallet that everything would have to come on.

Unfortunately his evening didn’t get much more entertaining. He and Sam were quiet as the baby slept, but he eventually had to wake up and Steve had to start really relying on those pamphlets. The baby had spent at least twenty four hours in a carrier so Steve had to spread out a tablecloth for the baby to roll around on. There weren’t toys around the apartment so he rooted around until he found the two pack of massage balls he used to roll out his feet after running and gave the baby the second one which went straight into a toothless mouth.

“This isn’t too bad.” He said before giving two knocks to the wooden coffee table.

Sam had to go back home for a change of clothes and a shave, but he came back with the story that he was worried Steve would go crazy with just a baby for company. Steve could accept the teasing if it meant he wasn’t the only one around when the baby started crying or when it finally was time to order take out.

It took about forty eight hours to baby proof his house because, of course, he forgot things. Things like plug covers to keep a baby from sticking a fork in a light socket or a door so he didn’t wander into the death trap that was the modern, American kitchen. Steve didn’t understand why he needed both, if the baby couldn’t grab a knife then he couldn’t stick it in the socket but it was a moot point. He’d bought both and therefore he might as well install both.

The little victories made the sudden transition easier. Getting a changing table up and stocked. Putting the baby books next to his history books. Learning how to make the baby sleep. He supposed that’s what kids were all about. Little firsts until they became adults.

He got sixteen weeks off, aka about four months. It was during this time that he realized why it was called Family Leave and not Vacation, But With An Infant. He didn’t really get time off unless Sam came over and sent him out. It wasn’t so much rest, this child had at least transitioned to sleeping throughout the night, it was that he couldn’t just leave. If he wanted to go anywhere he had to pack, check, then double check to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything. The one time he forgot a pacifier or a blanket, the baby was not happy. Every breathing moment was dedicated to making sure that the baby’s needs were taken care of. His T.V. was permanently tuned to cartoons and he suddenly had a cabinet full of Cheerios.

Being trapped with a baby was a lot like being in solitary confinement. You didn’t really have conversations you just spoke with an non-understanding brick wall to try and stay sane.

Sam was probably the one who called Clint. That or Sharon, who seemed very reluctant to get anywhere near a baby and generally offered help like she was handling it with a pair of long tongs. Either way Clint surprised him, not with a visit, but by promising to take the baby for twelve hours. 0800 to 2000. Because Clint was the strongest Avenger.

“Did you ask him?”

Sam shrugged as he locked the door. “It’s not important right now.”

“Well when it is important, thanks.”

Another lesson he quickly learned was why mothers always ended up talking about their children. Those little victories, the small changes, were noteworthy when you spent every waking hour with a child. It was a Herculean effort to not talk about something that had suddenly taken over his life for the past three weeks.

“Have you picked out a name?” Sam asked, and thank god Steve held out long enough so that he wasn’t the one to mention it.

“Not really.”

“Still don’t want James?”

“No, I thought about calling him and asking, but when I saw him last, I think he was really making progress. I don’t want to do anything to ruin it. So for now, no James.”

“Well, how about Damian?”

“What’s that a reference to?”

Sam shrugged, “Nothing really. It just sounds good. In my opinion.”

The date went as planned, Steve finally got that exciting night with Sam that he’d wanted even if it had to happen a bit earlier than usual so he could get back. Clint did whatever he did and when Steve came home the baby was fast asleep.

Steve could count on Sam to come over almost like clockwork. Often every other day and at least one day on the weekend, typically Saturday. He’d come and just help. Almost like a maid, but Steve did not dare say that out loud. He knew better than to make that kind of joke, Sam could go from 1 to 100 faster than a Ferrari race car and Steve would rather enjoy their time together.

Some days were hectic, Steve needed something done and it had to be done now because it wasn’t for him but the baby. Other days were more leisurely. T.V. on, Damian was calm, and Steve could focus on doing some remote work despite being on break.

“Did you understand it though?” Sam asked, sitting next to Damian on the couch.

“Bah.”

“Yeah me neither. It’s like why would he betray them like that?”

“Banda gaba.”

“Right? Someone needs to talk to the writers.”

“Abubu punoba gagne.”

“Yeah the writers are probably trying to wrap everything up.”

“Wubanugu.”

“Yeah, they shoulda just passed it off to new writers. Like, we been waiting for this for years and this is what you gave us? Shame.”

“Nananuuu.”

The conversation’s over before Steve remembered that he coulda record video on his phone. But it’s okay, because they have had a lot of conversations like that. Sometimes it even sounded like Damian was going to say something, but it still was just babbling. That’s Sam’s goal, to get Damian to say an actual word. To walk him through the steps. Sam’ll go outside and just name things. Flowers, azaleas, car, Toyota. Say words and see if Damian would repeat it.

By the time his twelve weeks were over, Steve had observed a couple of little victories. He made the first of solid food, which mostly ended up on the front of Damian’s bib. His first appointment, where the doctor prescribed a high calorie baby formula to help him gain a bit of weight. Damian rejected every bottle until Steve figured to mix it with the old stuff. It wasn’t a health scare per say, just odd. Steve couldn’t remember a time when Bucky could be considered small, but Steve was always the smallest, so everyone else was big and that was that.

Eventually his leave ran out, so Steve had to return to work. Thankfully work wasn’t necessarily a nine-to-five, he did have days where he could stay home under the condition that he be ready to go at a moment’s notice. But that still meant that Damian needed child care. He had the option of touring any of the three day cares near him; he could have gone to the open house and spoke with the teachers, but they were already great at advertising all of the millions of classes they offered.

“Go with the language one.” Sam said. “He should know how to talk to people.”

“Is there no normal day care around here?”

“This is normal. Education starts early.”

“He’s not even one yet.”

“Shoulda started in utero, but I’m sure you can make it up.”

The daycares had an application process. He had to write an essay to enroll a baby into daycare. No where in his 1930’s education was he taught how to write such an essay, so Sam had to take over. Two days later he was informed that Damian was in, which was a call he could’ve done without, given that it was just daycare and not Harvard.

Later on he found out Sam just wrote “I’m Captain America” in the essay section, which was more of a Steve move then Steve was willing to make at that point.

His first day back at work was draining, not only because he had to get up earlier than he’d been getting up while on break, but also because he had to talk with Damian’s daycare teacher, Margarita, about the goals of her class and what he expected out of it. Which was just to watch the baby for the hours he was at work, but apparently that was a weird answer.

People at work gave him knowing looks his first few weeks back at work. Oh, Captain America’s back from bonding with the baby. But they did quickly fade as more interesting news circulated.

He had a daycare, but his nightcare wasn’t as well planned out. Steve had a call list of people he trusted to take care of Damian in his absence, but Sam, Natasha, and Clint could just as easily be on a mission with him. Not at the same time typically, but he would breath a little easier in ten years when he could stop really worrying about Damian’s every waking moment. Thankfully higher ups were a little nicer to him, and were working hard to avoid giving him nightwork for the time being.

[TEXT] I’ll be in town next week. -B

Well. He knew it would come to this. Honestly he wished he could just text back “You have a clone baby and I’ve been raising him for the past eight months,” but telling someone they have a clone is a lot like breaking up with them. You had to do it in person.

Steve thought he could maybe bring Damian alone. Having physical proof would certainly seal the deal. But Bucky might not react well to physical proof. Steve, instead, chose a few pictures, nicer pictures where Damian wasn’t climbing on the sofa or making goofy faces, and pinned them on the inside of Damian’s folder.

Bucky would text a location when he settled in. Sometimes he’d been in town for a day or so before he had the time or gumption to inform Steve or Sam of where he was. Once he got the text he handed Damian off to Sam and headed over to the Dupont, a hotel he wasn’t really familiar with, but was clearly very nice. Often Bucky followed a war dog or royalty around as extra security. It helped that he could get into places most others couldn’t, but there wasn't a lot that happened around the world without Wakanda knowing so it was more a formality and a favor than anything. Steve didn’t know which clan head or notable scientist Bucky was escorting, but when he arrived Bucky informed him that he had the night off and he could go to the nearby Japanese restaurant. Which was busy, but they could get a seat in the corner where few people would look.

“We were all over Europe for about a month. You ever head back to France?”

“I’ve flown over it, but I haven’t been back there yet.”

Bucky was visibly doing better. He was clean shaveen and his hair was tied back. His shoulders weren’t as tense, and his words came out a bit more freely. Steve felt so happy for him. He didn’t want to ruin it, and he wished there was some sign to tell him when was the best time. What day would be far enough into his recovery that he was the least hurt, but not so far in the future that he would feel betrayed that he hadn’t been told earlier?

“We should all visit Europe again. Have you been since the war?”

“I haven’t,” he said quickly. “Look, Buck, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

The we-need-to-talk sentence was probably the most dreaded sentence amongst all humans. Steve saw Bucky clam up; his jaw tightened. Something about the vagueness and the careful way it was always said just sent fight or flight responses going. He probably shouldn't have led with that.

“Go ahead.”

“You know Hydra?”

“Very.”

“Well… We found something… well we didn’t find. It was more like we - I - was left something. Someone. And, you should probably know about it.”

Bucky frowned, but otherwise was silent as Steve reached into his backpack to pull out the folder. It was small still, mostly basics and only one line that noted Damian as a clone and not a normal child. He passed it over for Bucky to look through, his eyebrows knitting together as he opened it.

“He was left outside my apartment. At first me and Sam just thought some strange stalker had left him, but they ran a DNA test, Shield, and we started connecting the dots. This is all we’ve got on it.”

Bucky’s eyes scanned the page quickly. He was a quick reader, so he might’ve read it several times in the silence. His flesh arm thumbed through the few pictures Steve had brought. Otherwise Bucky didn’t betray much of what he was thinking through his face.

“Who left him?’

“I dunno. No one could I.D her.”

Bucky’s hand shook just a tad, “How long ago?”

“Well he’s been with me for eight-ish months give or take. But he’s probably about a year old now.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

Shoulda saw that coming.

“I wanted to wait for you to be face to face. Figured you’d be better off with the option to meet him if you want.”

“No.” Bucky said firmly. “Not tonight.”

Steve could imagine why Bucky hesitated, but it did cause his stomach to clench. Whatever issues Bucky had, this just made it worse. The subject knocked any jubilee from Bucky’s body and he handed back the folder without another word on the subject. Steve walked Bucky back to the hotel and left it at that. In a week or so, he might try and call to see how Bucky was doing. But he needed space right now.

“How’d it go?” Sam asked when Steve arrived back home.

“Coulda been worse.”

[](https://i.imgur.com/WOK1OvT.jpg)

Art by sirsable. Click to expand. 


	2. Two

Take Damian to the park he thought. It’ll be fun, he thought.

“Why would you close the park on Labor Day!” he yelled, mostly to no one but himself. “Everybody’s off! But no, we have to close the park!”

He must look strange; child under his arm and ranting at a locked gate that led to their local park. The waist high gate was made unopenable by a lock and chain. But that would not stop Steve. Oh no. He took a quick look around to make sure no cop was nearby, then easily bypassed the gate by simply sitting on the fence and bringing both feet over into the park with Damian in his arms. Damian, for what it was worth, did not seem at all aware of the illegal actions Steve had chosen to undertake. So that would hold up in court.

“Whatcha wanna do first, Day?” he asked. But the answer was obvious; Damian was a boy in love with his swings. His free spirit who always wanted to go higher. So Steve strapped him into the seat and began the only job Damian seemed to appreciate, pushing as hard as he dared.

“Ah, just me and you, bud,” he said, as Damian giggled and screamed, “Our first B&E together.”

Their visit to the park had dual purpose. The first was for some exercise, and the second was to ignore the fact that Sam had been called into work. So they stayed out late and ate Chinese food while they could. And they went home probably way later than they should.

Sam was in Steve’s bed when he got home which meant it was really late for Damian who still seemed wired. Steve tried to get Damian through the nighttime routine as quickly and quietly as possible, but he did eventually hear Sam get out of bed and walk to the kitchen while Damian laughed and screamed in the bathtub. Once Damian was in bed Steve headed out to the kitchen to see Sam eating peanuts.

“You two have fun?”

“Yeah, totally. Day got to swing, I got to rebel against our corrupt politicians.”

“Don’t elaborate, I don’t want to know.”

Steve plopped down next to Sam and began squeezing a peanut in his fingers to get at the edible parts. “I’m going to return you for a new friend.”

“Do it, I dare you. You think Stark or Thor’ll read up on potty training for you?”

The words hung in the air for just a moment before Steve finally dropped the question he’d been meaning to ask. “You wanna get married?”

Sam frowned, “What?”

“Married.”

“I heard you. Why though?”

“Are we not already?”

“No Steve, I think I would remember getting married. Unless we were in Vegas.”

“You’re always here though. You help with Damian, he calls you Pa. And we, I mean, sometimes we… look we’re more married than friends at this point. We should make it official. That way if anything happens we’re okay. If something happens to me you’ll look after Damian and I can do the same with your folks.”

Sam had seemed pretty content with whatever it was they had, honestly Steve didn’t even dare put a name on it. Sam had introduced Steve to his family, but pointedly as a friend and not boyfriend or partner. To be fair, neither of them had ever sat down and talked about it. But marriage hadn’t changed, and if they were going to put all this work into Damian and working together and supporting one another then they could damn well get the legal stuff out of the way.

“I dunno man…”

“Why not? What’s one good reason not to at this point?”

“Because marriage records are public. As in anyone could get their hands on them.”

Oh. That was a fair reason.

“Plus my family will want a big wedding and murder me if I just go to a courthouse with two witnesses. I just - I have to think about it, is all.”

Sam’s face was pinched, but thankfully Steve hadn’t overstepped in such a way that Sam left the apartment. He was still around in the morning to help out. Whether or not he’d be around for that evening eventually became a moot point.

Damian was in a pretty bad mood when Steve went to pick him up that evening, and his teacher was similarly frustrated.

“He didn’t drink his medicine today.” She said, handing him the bottle zipped up in a plastic bag.

Steve sighed, but this was nothing new. The weight issue was an ongoing battle between the Shield doctors, who would click their tongues whenever they weighed Damian, and Damian, who really didn’t like the potions and drinks the doctors prescribed in face of Damian’s super soldier metabolism. It was rare for Damian to not only drink the entire prescribed dose, but to also keep it down, as it seemed that every formula they tried had a high chance of ending up spat up again. Honestly he wished he could force the school to deal with it and be the bad guys, but they couldn’t exactly force feed a child.

“Come on Day, do you want to end up in the hospital again?” Sometimes a reminder of the consequences helped motivate Damian. He didn’t enjoy his occasional foray into the pediatric ward any more than Steve enjoyed having to answer why he was there yet again.

“No!”

“Is that the only word you know?”

“Yes.”

His next strategy was to be a bit mean. No toys or games. But like most other times Damian merely glared at the bottle on the table rather than down it, in order to get to activities he enjoyed, sitting down for the entire hour it took Steve to make dinner.

Bribery was Steve’s last ditch effort before he forked the task over to Sam. He promised whatever fruit in the fridge, a scoop of ice cream, whatever he wanted. But even that couldn’t convince Damian to choke through it. Sometimes Sam could sit him down and convince him to finally drink his medicine. But that was a long shot. Today Damian decided his health was less important than digging his heels in the ground.

So they were veering towards another hospital visit. Wonderful. Great. Steve loved those so much.

Long after Damian was in bed Sam came home and saw the cup still full of medicine sitting sullenly on the table.

“We need a better bribe. Let’s bake it into a cake. Or buy him a puppy.”

“I would genuinely fear for that puppy. He would shake it dead.”

“But I bet he would drink his protein shake.”

Steve was prepared to tuck into a very typical night, nothing stressful to worry about. Wake up early for a run. Sam went to microwave his dinner while Steve tried to pretend that the news wasn’t a depressing collection of pixels. A knock on the door startled them first, and Steve felt himself tense up even as he stood to answer.

“You expecting someone else?” Bucky said casually, leaning on one foot with a sugary drink in his hand.

Steve relaxed, “I wasn’t expecting anyone. Do you want to come in? Damian’s asleep.”

Truth be told Steve hadn’t seen much from Bucky in the past year and a half, partially because, even the mention of Damian sent Bucky scurrying. Steve took it as a step in the right direction when Bucky took the invitation and sat down at the table.

“Look I’ll make this quick. There’s a bunker not too far from here that might have some old Hydra info.” Bucky said, “It’s likely abandoned, but that doesn’t mean that no one’s keeping an eye on it. That’s all I know at this point.”

“How’d you find out about this?”

“Guy Wakanda captured for treason, as part of getting his sentence reduced, informed Wakanda of what he knew.”

“Did he know about the project specifically?”

“No. Did you guys want to go?”

The invitation couldn’t have come at a worse time. Steve couldn’t just drop what he was doing and go off with Bucky anymore no matter how much he wanted to. Damien needed to be kept on schedule, and since Shield wasn’t too concerned with Hydra he would have a tough time convincing them to prioritize this.

But Steve wasn’t really alone in this. He and Sam were a team. And whatever he could do Sam could do as well. So he handed this task off to Sam.

In a case like this Sam was probably better off handling this then Steve was. He worked evenings and could call out sick more easily simply because there were other counselors available to do his job. On top of that he was simply less recognizable. He didn’t do a lot of PR meetings.

It wasn’t Sam’s first choice, he expected this day to be calm as usual, and instead he was being briefed on a potentially hostile safehouse while he tried to wolf down his dinner. He hated everything about it, but would go, because he loved Damian more than he hated being inconvenienced.

Sam couldn’t say he’d ever been to Winchester. It was certainly close enough to visit, but he wasn’t a man interested in history he wasn’t currently in a relationship with. So he got on the back of Bucky’s motorcycle and held tight for the hour-ish ride to a rather remote area near the edge of town. It was a rundown building that was probably, once upon a time, some kind of auto repair shop. Sam wasn’t at all shocked to see something so common as a Hydra hideout. They’d probably put a nuclear research facility under a children’s playground, if they could.

“How do you know there’ll be anything on Damian here?”

“I don’t. But Hydra wouldn’t just destroy every record of it. In the future they might want to recreate it.”

A dark point, but a fair one. Scientists didn’t like throwing away their work no matter how dangerous or unethical it may or may not be. Sam followed Bucky’s lead. If there were traps, he wasn’t about to be the first one to walk into them. Sam spotted a camera at one corner of the roof, but Bucky didn’t seem concerned about it, so he tried not to feel like someone was looking at what they were doing.

Inside, the work areas were mostly empty and dusty. They both split up to find anything of note in the area, with Bucky stumbling on the hidden doorway in the back, relatively quickly.

“They actually don’t change too much between different facilities,” Bucky said. He managed to get the door open with a little hacking device someone in Wakanda gave him. The door slid open and the two of them walked down the steps.

The halls downstairs were equally barren as the upstairs. Cold and unfeeling, Sam didn’t really see how there could be anything useful around here. It all looked as if it had been abandoned half a century ago. Dust lined every touchable surface, and half of the technology was clearly broken.

“There’s something here,” Bucky said.

“If they wanted to keep it wouldn’t they send it to some sort of HQ or something?”

“Hydra never had a HQ. Everything had to stay separate. So no one knew everything. We’ll find something.”

Sam wished that he could have such faith in their little excursion, but he began searching with the feeling that this was a waste of time and that he was staying up until late at night just to accidentally lean on a desk full of dust. But he wasn’t doing that. As useless as everything felt, they did eventually find something. The computer seemed to be broken, but Bucky stuck a normal looking flash drive into the port and it came to life.

“Did T’Challa give you that?”

“T’Challa? No. He’s an idiot.”

That sounded like a story, but Sam didn’t try to pry. It took about five minutes for the flash drive to do its thing, then another hour to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Honestly the entire facility seemed fairly unassuming. Clearly it had been used for something scientific, and probably medical, but it wasn’t as if there were a bunch of cadavers lying around in a freezer or blood on the floor. Sam could easily be convinced that this was an old dentist office or general practitioner’s exam rooms; not a Hydra facility.

Thankfully they didn’t get jumped when they left, though Sam wouldn’t put it past anyone to do that as they headed home. He almost wanted to insist that they head home when it was daylight to decrease the chance of them getting jumped by a swarm of baddies, but honestly, that probably wouldn’t stop them. If Hydra had the resources to keep this secret, then they would get them at the most inopportune moment.

“I’m going to take the long way back okay?” Bucky said. “To make sure they don’t have the way back blocked.”

That sounded great. Until Sam had to be mentally present for it. If safety meant being strapped to the back of a supersoldier for three hours, through boring country scenery, then maybe Hydra should attack them. It certainly would have been more interesting and probably would’ve let him get home more quickly before Steve went out for his run.

“Goddammit.” He sighed as he tried to find a nice way to reply to the text.

“Hmm?”

“Steve decided to go on a run and leave Damian alone.”

“So?”

“So…”

“What’s he gonna do when he’s sleeping?”

“This isn’t the 1930s. You can’t- nevermind. Do you want to come in?”

Bucky seemed reluctant to accept, but he eventually did. Sam let him into the house and broke out his laptop, it was probably the oldest thing in the apartment, second to Steve, so if there was something on the flashdrive that could infect his laptop, there wasn’t much they’d find.

The flashdrive went into the port and after a few minutes the thing could be read just like any other flash drive Sam had used before. The files were mostly dated, rather than actually named.

The oldest date was about ten years before Damian’s estimated birthdate. It detailed the goals of the project, which was just as Sam expected. A desire to increase the number of weapons at their disposal, especially given the fact that Bucky could eventually get hurt badly enough to the point where he became useless.

“Well that’s grim,” Sam said.

“We already knew that’s what they were doing.”

They skimmed through the next few years, which mostly detailed trials and failures until they perfected the end result. Predictably, this resulted in Damian. At least one Damian and nine other subjects.

Things got a bit more sickening after that, with data taken as usual. The reports noted the baby’s accelerated metabolism and the special combination of formulas needed to ensure they grew healthy and strong, nothing that Sam didn’t already know. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Damian struggled with a few normal things like eating and gaining weight, the reports simply confirmed that this was due to the not quite perfect serum that allowed for such growth while requiring a massive amount of calories. Sam knew Bucky was in the same boat; there simply wasn’t enough stomach space to actually accommodate everything they needed, unless it got blended into an easily drinkable liquid.

But then the reports detailed the cancellation of the project, citing the cost of raising even one child to an age in which it was useful as a cost the organization could no longer afford. In precise, impersonal language it detailed that the children’s handler gave each and every child some medicine to make them sleep and then dumped the bodies in an incinerator.

Sam lowered the lid of the laptop. That was enough for the day.

“Well, that gave us nothing,” Bucky said. If he had any feelings about the files, then he’d carefully locked them away so Sam couldn’t pick up on them.

“I disagree, we know what they did.”

“But not any names. I think we could all guess why Hydra would want to clone me. The only new information we have is that they couldn’t justify the cost after they were outed by Shield and-”

Bucky went still when he heard the soft footsteps coming from Damian’s bedroom. They crossed from the room to the bathroom.

“You leavin’?” Sam asked.

Bucky’s mouth went into a line. “No, I can stay…”

Sometimes Damian went back to bed, other times he was up and there was nothing anyone could do about it. This morning it was the later, as Damian hurriedly came into the kitchen after a quick stop to Steve’s empty room.

“Hey Day. This is a friend of your dad’s. Bucky.”

Damian waved, which Bucky returned, but Damian seemed less interested in Bucky and more interested in charging up to Sam, “Are we- are we eating waffles?” he said.

Bucky snorted.

“No. Go brush your teeth, we’re eating weekday food.”

Damian’s face went round with a pout, but he went to brush his teeth without saying anything else.

“I want waffles, Wilson.”

“There’s a diner down the block,” Sam said. Bucky let out another snort at the joke, but didn’t say anything as Sam measured out the morning dose of the dreaded drink. Damian took one look at the cup and let out a loud garble that communicated his displeasure.

“No!”

“I feel ya kid,” Bucky said.

“You’re not helping.” Sam set the drink down in front of Damian. “Don’t you have words of wisdom for him instead?”

“Yeah, skip the drink. Eat twelve doughnuts.”

Sam didn’t really feel like going into why plying a two year old with sugar wasn’t a great idea, but he didn’t really get the chance to as Bucky stood up.

“I gotta go. I’ll see you around Wilson.”

And just like that Bucky was gone. The fateful meeting between him and his clone son ended up weirdly mundane and almost like a boss meeting his subordinate’s child. Sam wondered if this was the anticipated breakthrough, maybe Bucky would actually come into the apartment and speak to Damian regularly, rather than being some creepy long ranged parent. But he doubted it. If Bucky had some serious mental issue that kept him from interacting with Damian then spending five minutes in the same room, and not speaking directly to one another, would not help him overcome that.

So he kept the exchange to himself for a while. Got Damian out the door and called into work so he could get his eight hours and hopefully not fuck up his internal clock too much. He let Steve know what they found in the evening the next day and then let Steve just sulk over the news.

It was true. Not much was revealed from their foray into an abandoned Hydra base, and that was definitely the most frustrating part about this. It didn’t tell them any names or where any of the researchers went. Gave no information on other cells or if a similar strain of research was underway.

But it did show just how terrible Hydra was. That they could make ten children and order the death of them all to cover their tracks. It really showed just how much time Sam was spending with Steve and Damian, that this news felt personal. Sam didn’t necessarily want to raise ten super soldier babies, but he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of people they could’ve been. Damian was just lucky that he got out.

Sam passed the flash drive over to Steve, who then passed it over to Shield. Steve refrained from looking at it personally, choosing to instead read the final report and get all of his information from Sam. He trusted Sam and the techs down at the lab, and he didn’t have a strong desire to get into the collective head of Hydra.

A few weeks after this little escapade Steve got the call from Shield. He and Sam had half an hour to get on a plane with the other avengers on duty and fly down south to Hawaii.

“Does it have to be both of us?” Steve complained into the phone. “I do have a kid to think about you know.”

“Relax Rogers, we got you a babysitter.”

The babysitter turned out to be Peter Parker who was waiting patiently on the tarmac of some building in Hawaii. He looked a bit too anxious, when Steve passed Damian over, to make Sam feel comfortable leaving the kid, but apparently he had the credentials.

“Don’t worry, Mr. America. I babysit Morgan all the time. I know how to do this.”

Not exactly reassuring, but Steve didn’t have anyone else he could really rely on at the moment. Missions like these tended to get planned by the minute, and they were out in the ocean storming a Hydra base just minutes after dropping Peter and Damian off at the hotel. The group was separated. Steve led the group invading while Rhodey led the group that stayed outside. As inconvenient it was to be out here Steve couldn’t say that it was any more difficult than any of the other fights they’d had with Hydra.

Any Hydra agents not killed were captured, mostly tied up with rope and hauled upwards. Steve wanted to personally look through whatever physical records he could get his hands on, but there were people who did that. And they were a lot smarter than Steve.

“You got a second?” Rhodey asked, just outside the base. Outside was significantly more chaotic than inside. Choppers hovered overhead and Rhodey was yelling, just to be slightly heard, over the shouting and chaos. Steve allowed himself to be pulled aside into the plane they’d flown. It blocked out the noise well enough.

“What’s up?”

“Sam had to be lifted to the hospital,” he said, face neutral. “He’s fine, before you ask.”

Steve’s stomach squeezed, “Doesn’t sound fine. What happened?”

“He was shot. But he was fine enough to wisecrack as they lifted him.”

Rhodey wasn’t the type of guy to say things were fine when they weren’t. Steve trusted him to at least inform him if there was a chance that Sam was actually in trouble. It didn’t make him feel better, knowing that Sam was hospitalized, but it did reassure him that he wasn’t in any direct danger.

So he hurriedly rushed through the post mission checklist. No one else was hurt, and the clean up crew was already doing their jobs of processing what was there. They didn’t need him. So he left.

A quick change into his normal clothes and he was off to the Wilcox Medical Center. Not too far from where they were, but with much fewer choppers from both police and media. He found the Emergency Department where the woman at the front turned him away.

“He’s being kept overnight,” she said, “And visiting hours are over. We can allow you in at nine tomorrow morning.”

“Is he at least okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine. They had to operate, but it all went smoothly. You don’t need to worry.”

At least his worry was voluntary and not necessary. He didn’t like being turned away and having to go to the hotel. Not just because it meant leaving Sam in the hospital, but also because of what he encountered when he got there.

“He just won’t stop crying!” Peter yelled. Damian’s screams reminded him of one of the choppers hovering just overhead. So loud it felt like they were pushing in his eardrums. “I changed him, I fed him and everything! I don’t know what to do.”

Peter passed Damian over, which did nothing to actually stop the screaming. “What made him start in the first place?”

Peter’s jaw seemed to seize up for a second at the question. He paused before answering, “We were watching the fight on the news…”

Steve sighed, “Thank you Peter. I can take it from here.”

Peter quickly fled out the door, leaving Steve alone with his distraught son who squirmed and screamed even as Steve tried to sush him. It was well past midnight; Damian should’ve been asleep hours ago. He was tired and scared, missing Sam. And Steve could sympathize. If he had the energy he’d want to be screaming and crying too. But he was tired, and all he could think to do was lie down on the bed with his arms around Damian and hope that he could somehow coax the toddler asleep. It would’ve been easier if Damian spoke, but he supposed the type of fear associated with losing a loved one was a bit harder for a toddler to articulate compared to hunger or thirst.

Eventually the crying stopped, allowing them both to get a few hours rest before the sun was up and Steve had to get up. He tried to let Damian sleep for as long as possible, to best avoid crankiness. There was no real way to stop it. He just tried to mitigate it enough to get Damian dressed and to grab some food from the store before they headed over to the hospital.

Since it was the middle of the day there were a lot more people at the hospital. The ward they’d stashed Sam in wasn’t particularly quiet; hospitals rarely were actually quiet, with the nurses racing around getting medicine and food while the custodians sanitized every room and friends and family chatted away. The T.V. in Sam’s room was on and broadcasting Sam’s guilty pleasure, some Korean drama that he only watched when he thought Steve was asleep. Steve knocked on the frame before stepping in, Sam’s face split into a big grin.

“There you guys are,” he said. “Was wondering if you’d stop by.”

“What kind of man do you think I am? Letting you sit here alone?”

In his arms Damian squirmed, yelling, “No! No!” until Steve let him down, only to yell, “Yes! Yes!” when he wanted into the bed. Steve reluctantly helped the temperamental toddler onto the bed, where snuggles were almost served with a kick to Sam's injured side as Damian tried to get settled under his arm.

“He really missed you last night.”

“Did he? Did you botch 'Baa, Baa Black Sheep'?”

“Not really. Peter let him watch the news and he saw you got injured.”

Sam frowned. “Why’d he do that?”

Steve shrugged. “I dunno. He probably didn’t think that Damian would understand what he was seeing.”

“We need to hire a service from now on.” Sam rubbed the top of Damian’s head. “By the way I accept.”

“Hm?”

“The marriage proposal. I’m willing to get married if it’s still on the table.”

Steve’s heartbeat sped up just a tad. “Really?”

Sam shrugged, “Yeah, might as well get access to that Super Soldier Pension you’re probably sitting on.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want an actual wedding. I don’t need attention drawn to this, not when I got family scattered all over.”

That was fair. Steve had never exactly fantasized about his wedding. Maybe when they were retired he could convince Sam to have a real wedding, with a ceremony. That might be next year or twenty from then, they’d have to see.

“Guess that makes us a real family. Through sickness and health. Which means I can give you these.” He grabbed the shopping bag and pulled out one of the treats he’d picked up at the store to hand over to Sam.

“Chocolate? You got me chocolate?”

“The local specialty.”

“You’re trying to kill me.” But he did open the package to eat one and share the other with Damian who pulled his face out from under Sam’s arm to take one.

The bullet was a through and through which took a bit longer to heal. He’d be out of action for at least the next few months, if not until next year. Nothing had been seriously injured and he was cleared to go after a few days. They turned the injury into a semi-vacation, spending two more days on the island to relax before heading back home to D.C.

They planned for a courthouse wedding, but they didn’t immediately head down to get it. Instead they spent a weekend discussing the sexiest subject of all: finances. Along with several other serious decisions such as redrafting wills and deciding what would happen to Damian if either of them passed. All the stuff Steve didn’t like thinking about.

Sam’s friends and family had seen the injury as well, so they spent some time fielding calls from every extended family member and high school ex who somehow still had his number. The injury was notable enough that some of Sam’s closer friends and relatives chose to throw him a small party, two weeks out, when he was better able to walk and talk.

Most of Sam’s friends were nearby, so getting over to his friend, Frankie’s, house was only a thirty minute drive. Steve hadn’t met the man before, not out of any lack of desire, but because Sam typically met his friends at bars or restaurants and then arrived home in some random state of inebriation.

The party started at noon because everyone attending were adults with kids and not looking to get drunk. Frankie’s house was fairly big, certainly bigger than his apartment and the few houses he and Sam had just started looking at. Frankie had three kids, all older than Damian. Two were out in front, playing tag with another child Steve didn’t recognize, but was probably the son of one of Sam’s cousins. The garage door was open and inside there was a couch with a T.V. and a fridge. Five men were sipping beers one minute and dragging Sam away the next, whooping and hollering while pushing a beer in his hands. Steve quickly ducked away to go through the front door to find his favorite woman.

“Steve! Glad you could make it,” Mrs. Wilson said, pulling him down to rain kisses on his face. “Where’s my son?”

“Watching the game I expect.”

“Only he would run off before greeting his mother.” She reached out and grabbed Damian from Steve’s arms, “Hey baby,” she cooed as she whisked him away before disappearing into the crowd.

There were a lot of people to talk to, and between Sam’s family and Frankie’s, they barely fit in the home. Some people spilled out into the backyard where a medium sized pool was already occupied by a few of the teenagers. Upstairs there were probably more people, but Steve got more distracted by the line of food in the kitchen.

“This is pancit,” Maria, a ten year old girl he just met, informed him. “And this is kare-kare, and this is called puto.”

“What’s in it?”

“I dunno, but it’s good,” said the brave girl, spooning some of the thick, black mixture onto her plate. Kids these days were so strong.

There was also more familiar fare like fried chicken and potato salad and desserts of brownies, sweet bananas, and pies. He filled two plates with savory food and brought one out for Sam who was seated on the couch still nursing the same beer while a basketball game was on. Most of the other guys were eating popcorn and commenting on the game.

“Does no one here know what a vegetable looks like?” Sam joked as he took the plate.

“It’s a party not a Weight Watchers meeting,” Frankie joked. Which was funny considering Frankie was a model and sometimes his diet was more restrictive than even Sam could get.

“Y'all trying to send me back to the hospital,” Sam said as he dug into his plate. The other men laughed and joked about how Sam’s new job might do that first. Not really a joke to Steve, but Sam laughed at it easily enough so he tried to fill his mouth with pancit and not be a wet blanket.

Occasionally a kid or a girlfriend or a wife would stop in and interrupt one of the guys. They had parties like this back in the ‘30s, but without the various foods and definitely no pool for the kids to swim in before tracking all that chlorine and water back into the house. Grandparents were still in the kitchen making food and Sam’s oldest uncle, a sixty-eight year old man, was watching the smoker for his ribs to be done.

“Yeah, Filipinos feed you man.” Frankie said, “It’s how we stay gorgeous.”

That might just be in Frankie’s case. Frankie was a popular enough model that Steve occasionally saw his ads in other countries. Not to say that the rest of Frankie’s family wasn’t attractive, just that he was definitely a special case. Sam tended to surround himself with handsome men, even Jason the vegan had a rotating group of admirers, it was almost enough to make Steve insecure.

Sam’s friends mostly stayed down in the basement unless someone wanted food, in which case only one of them went up and grabbed enough to split. Steve left to make sure that Damian was still alright, finding him in the kitchen with Mrs. Wilson nowhere in sight. Instead Tammy, one of Frankie’s cousins presumably, had him on the counter. This room was also full of food, this time a big platter of raw fish on the counter and a pot of soup simmering on the stove. Tammy had a plate of raw fish that she was sharing with Damian, handing him small pieces so he could push it into his little face.

“I’ve just been having fun feeding him,” the twenty-something said. “How much can babies eat?”

“This one can eat a lot.”

“But can babies eat raw fish like that?” Jason asked as he went for the soup.

It took three individual adults a moment to Google the question. Once they found an answer, Steve grabbed Damian’s hand to keep him from taking another bite, but the child would not let go of his catch. Chanting, “Mine! Mine!” and holding tight enough that Steve struggled to get his thumb through the small fingers to force them open. Tammy had to come back with a few pieces of fried shrimp to distract the child.

The party continued on without another near death incident. Steve had never walked out of a party feeling like he should be rolled out like the blueberry girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Sam managed to put on a good front, but he quickly passed out in the car once they hit the freeway. In the back seat Damian babbled words that were vaguely related to one another. It was up to Steve to power on and get both of them in bed.

Things became painfully domestic after that. It was quiet at work, so he spent a lot of time with Sam picking out an overpriced house, concerned with school districts and walkability to entertainment. Their marriage certificate came in the mail; they made bets over how long they could keep the nuptials a secret. Steve was a little disappointed they didn’t get a honeymoon, but he supposed that there was time for that later. All of this, the house and the certificate, made him feel a little more real. Like he was part of a family, more than he’d had since his mom had dad.

“Hey, Day,” he said, pulling Damian’s attention away from the simple puzzle he was working on. “Look. Pap and I are official now.”

He held the paper out for Damian to look at. It looked nice enough that after a moment Damian reached out and grabbed at the corner and pull it out of Steve’s hand. In the next moment he’d dropped it on the floor and delivered open handed smacks to the poor paper.

“Thanks…”


	3. Three

When Sam had spotted the dying cherry tree at the home repair store, he’d insisted upon buying it. If there was a shred of logic to this purchase, Steve wasn’t privy to it. He’d simply came home one day to find the thing already planted.

Allegedly, their neighbor had told Sam about how he’d managed to nurse two, tiny apple saplings into the monstrosities that now eclipsed their yard and Sam had wanted to see if he could replicate his success. Steve had been doubtful it would work since the first year the tiny thing had failed to produce any cherries. The next year they managed to get enough to enjoy themselves. Then the next year they had enough to give away.

And three years after that, they were drowning in cherries. Steve had spent the entire morning with Emanuel, Sam’s dad, trying to pick it all and somehow they’d managed to pick three grocery bags worth of cherries while and they failed to even put a dent in the amount of cherries still hanging from the tree. A fourth bag had also been picked, but since noon Clarice had been busy inside the house making pies and jams.

Damian’s uncle had taken all the kids under the age of sixteen out to a nearby fishing hole, so the morning had been fairly calm. When the group came back they took over the backyard with their screams and cheers. Sam immediately took the fish and was trying to do something to them. He was probably trying to grill them, but his brother was also there, and so was his father, and Steve was fairly certain it didn’t take three grown men to grill four medium-sized fish.

“Your heat’s too hot boy. You ain’t cooking the insides. Gonna kill us all,” said Emanuel.

“Nah, he needs to put some BBQ sauce on ‘em,” said Malcolm.

“You two need to back up and let me work.”

Steve had planted his butt firmly at the base of their tree far from the chaos. He had Netflix open on his tablet and was halfway through a season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina when Damian ran up to him and threw his bony arms around Steve’s shoulders. A small face buried itself in his hair.

“Whacha watchin’?”

He wrapped an arm around Damian’s torso. “Nothin’ for you. Why aren’t you playing?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Go eat the cherries.”

“Hmmm, 'k.”

Damian extracted himself from Steve’s hold so that he could help himself to handfuls of cherries from the nearby bags. Steve tried to get back into his show, but the group of men attempting to cook up something edible was somehow more entertaining in the moment. Malcolm held a sleeve of frozen burger patties while Emanuel was trying to change the temperature of the grill. Sam was growing increasingly frustrated at the meddling by his family.

“Why is it that every black man with kids thinks he can BBQ, huh?” Malcolm complained.

“Sorry, I’m not slathering everything in BBQ sauce.”

“Boy you betta’ turn that heat down.”

“Dad stop!”

“Calm down son.”

“I am calm!”

“The kids are hungry, are we going to eat soon?” Jezebel, Sam’s sister, asked.

“We’ll eat once Sam cooks these burgers.”

“I’ll start them when the fish is done!”

“When it’s black is what you mean.”

“I’ll let you three figure this out,” Jezebel said.

The three men continued to fight. The children continued to play. Steve was once again joined by Damian who wrapped his arms around Steve shoulders and pushed his face into Steve’s hair again.

“Go eat some bread if you’re still hungry.”

“Mmphm.”

Something gross and wet plopped down on the center of Steve’s head.

“Eugh! What was that?” He yelled. 

Damian giggled as Steve pushed him away and ran his fingers through his hair. A small cherry pit fell out.

“No!” he yelled, as Damian went back in for another hug. Steve pushed him away once, then again, but he loved hugging Damian and let the giggling boy wrap his arms around Steve’s shoulders once again. “You little monkey.”

The shouting seemed to have calmed down just a bit, so that meant something had probably been pulled from the grill. Steve picked Damian up and headed over to where the Wilson men were trying to lay down the burgers.

“Sup?” Malcolm said, because he seemed the least interested in burgers.

“I’m trying to get Damian a snack to tide him over until dinner.”

“Sure, sure. We got fish.”

Malcolm hacked off an adult sized piece of trout slathered with his red BBQ sauce. The bite offered up on the fork didn’t look appetizing to Steve, but it wasn’t often that Damian rejected food, so he leaned forward like the trusting child he was and took a bite. Immediately Damian’s face twisted into a grimace. Steve only had a few moments to get his hand under Damian’s chin before he spat the food back up.

“Thanks Day…”

“You don’t like it?” Malcolm asked in disbelief. “Come on, take another bite.”

“Bitter.” Damian complained, dodging the fork. Steve set Damian on the ground so he could grab a water bottle from the cooler.

“Malcolm. What’re you doing to him?” Sam demanded.

“Nothing! Here, try this!”

Malcolm practically had to shove the spoon into Sam’s face to get his brother to try the dish. Immediately Sam’s face twisted into the same grimace Damian’s had.

“No… no...” he said. Emanuel held out an empty, plastic cup where Sam spat the item out. Damian came up behind him with his water half drunk and held it up to Sam.

“Awww, look at this. It’s three generations ” Steve said, which got a laugh out of Emanuel.

The burgers came off the grill and the family finally got the chance to eat. Mrs. Wilson had made various different sides to go with their meal and brought it out once she was sure the men had finished. Potato salad, mac and cheese, mixed salad, and big pitcher of cherry limeade. The kids managed to hold onto every ounce of their energy even as they sat down, they screamed and laughed at the table. Once finished they returned to the backyard to play. The adults mixed the cherry lime drink with some harder drinks until it began to grow dark outside. After which the WIlson’s left, one by one, Jezebel being the last to leave after she helped clean up.

Steve was happy to spend the rest of his evening relaxing, he’d actually been looking forward to it. Instead, he got a call from Hill. Mass kidnapping and hostages in Africa. He had an hour to get to the main base before the plane would take off. As much as he hated the task, he was not the only one soured by the assignment.

“I promise I’ll be back soon,” he said at the door; Damian’s face firmly settled into a pout. “You won’t even know I’m gone.”

“You’re lying!” Damian complained.

“I’m not lying.” He kissed the top of Damian’s head. “It’ll be quick I promise.”

He had to pull himself away from Damian to kiss Sam, then leave. Getting to the site was never the problem. Oftentimes it went quickly, with all the briefings and planning. People needed to know exactly what they would be doing and what to do if they failed or if something went wrong. And Steve needed to be ready to make the hard calls if need be.

The mission was in the carribean. Originally there was hope that T’Challa would be able to handle it, but he was one man and Wakanda was small. So his reach was limited. But, really, it was probably better that Steve went. Not because he was better suited, but because T’Challa was a king. He had a nation to think about. He couldn’t have what happened weigh down on his chest like it ended up doing.

It wasn’t a bombastic battle between two equals, but effectively a hostage situation. A situation where they, in no uncertain terms, lost the hostages. Choices were made. And they, simply, were wrong.

In the end it was a sight no one should have to see, and it would be burned into the back of his eyelids forever.

Bodies scattered, blood seeping into the dry soil. They’d won but the victims had lost. In the back of his head he knew it should be okay, the men in suits had warned him that the chance of there being any survivors was slim. But people weren’t rational, and some might say that Steve was the least rational of them all.

Some of those kids weren’t even old enough for school. Tiny and malnourished, but it was the bullets that got them. A quick and senseless end to their tragedy.

Steve didn’t like to think about ifs. He focused on wrapping up what he could. Make note of how many civilians had been killed, and try to find the leader to confirm his kill. Send in clean-up, because that’s all there was left. Clean up the bodies. Inform next of kin. And wear this tragedy like another bar on his uniform. Go home and sleep while he could.

One blink and he was on the plane, another and he was home. He lay in his bed and shut his eyes. Opened them just a second later, early in the morning. A tiny body crawling into his bed, into his vision. Damian’s bloody, gaunt face came into view as did his blood soaked hands.

He didn’t hear his own scream, but he did see his hands shoot up to cup the bloody face. The young face. The smiling face. Laughter flooded his ears like his head was pulled from the rushing, deafening stream.

“I got you!” Damian’s laughter rang like bells just loud enough to hurt but wonderful enough to scare the dark miasma of emotion that had invaded Steve’s head, reducing it to a small pebble in the back of his mind. 

“Yeah. You got me,” he said, not very joyfully. Damian squirmed in his arms, laughing as he clutched a bloody tooth in his left hand. Sam stepped into the room not a second later, clear eyed and fully dressed.

“Damian don’t get on our bed with your bloody face, what did you do?” He yanked Damian out of Steve’s lap and set him on the floor. Damian presented the bloody tooth, holding it up as if it were a prize he’d won. “I knew you were the thump in your room. Go clean up.”

Damian, still giggling like a madman, ran off to wash his face while Sam turned his attention to Steve. Giving him the therapist once over that told him everything he needed to know right now.

“I take it last night didn’t go well?”

“Nope.” Steve rubbed at his bloodshot eyes. Sometimes he was jealous of Sam. He’d seen Sam at his worst and yet he always managed to piece himself together when Damian came through the door. Compartiminization, scheduling. One hour for a break down, half an hour to piece himself together again. Sam’s demons were punctual while Steve’s were always around the corner ready to jump him.

“You don’t have to come; if you’d rather rest.”

“No, no. I’d rather be with people.” If Steve retreated into himself at every traumatic experience then he’d spend half of Damian’s childhood cowering. That was no way to live.

“Alright, but I’m driving.”

Steve was so tired he practically crawled into a clean shirt and jeans, but thankfully that’s all he really had to do. He felt a bit bad, kind of like he was giving Sam two children to watch that day, but Steve could't straighten out his thoughts into something coherent. He got in the car and almost fell asleep listening to Sam and Damian argue.

“No, you cannot bring your tooth. Leave it here.”

“But - but!”

“No buts; just leave it in the bathroom. You can put it under your pillow when we get back.”

Damian climbed into the car after he cleaned up his face and found a spot for the tooth. Sam started the car, pulling out while it was still relatively dark out. They had quite the drive to do, six hours until they were in Pennsylvania. As much as Steve did appreciate getting out of the house during this emotional time, he didn’t necessarily look forward to it. Even before last night, camping was low on his list of things he liked to do. But he needed positive human contact more than he needed to avoid bugs.

“I’m stopping to get coffee you want anything?” Sam asked.

“Just a latte,” he said.

Sam got out of the car and Damian followed. Steve got just a few minutes of sporadic dips into sleep before he couldn’t do it anymore. The sun was up, and he’d be awake for the rest of the day. He had to come to terms with that.

The duo came outside carrying three cups, Sam’s in his hand while Damian carried two cups. Damian, hilariously enough, was also wearing his lime green cowboy hat and a pair of spotted, plastic sunglasses.

“You look very on brand today, Day,” Steve said as he grabbed his drink.

“Thanks.”

One hour down, several more to go. Steve got comfortable and watched the road go by. Outside it was quiet, with few people on the road given how early it was. He liked nature, enjoyed looking at it. But he did not enjoy being in it. He’d spent a long time camping in the middle of Europe during the war and as far as he was concerned the AC was one of the greatest inventions ever. Mankind could never top it, and he never wanted to leave it.

But leave it he did. Kind of. Clint was the one to invite them camping, but Stark turned it to glamping. Because while Morgan deserved sunshine, she also didn’t deserve to sleep on the floor. His words exactly. Steve would never admit to being relieved that he would have an actual bed.

They pulled up to the campsite as the last group. Kids were already dashing in and out of tents, playing games and making messes. Steve opened the door so Damian could join them and then went to help Sam with the luggage in the back. As he opened the door Sam put a hand around his shoulder in a quick hug.

“You sure you’re up for this?”

“I’m fine.”

“You didn’t look fine this morning.”

“Look, it’s just been a long day. Give me twenty-four hours and then start worrying.”

Honestly it didn’t seem too bad. The “tent” was nice, and the kids entertained each other during the day. Steve didn’t have to immediately talk to anyone, he could just sleep and slowly get his bearings.

There were a lot of reasons for this trip, but the man one was that they simply needed a break. Clint was a persuasive man when he wanted to be. This is what he did every year with his kids to give his wife a break and he promised that sleeping in a tent was good for one’s back. Of course things got upgraded when Stark was invited.

The campsite was next to the lake and, technically, was not exclusively rented out to only them, but they did take up the vast majority of the tents available in the area. A handful of families were staying nearby that they hadn’t met, and Steve saw two unfamiliar kids playing with the group. The parents, nowhere to be found.

At the center of the camping site there was a tent where food was made and served, so there was no roasting hotdogs and frying Spam over a campfire. Which Steve was not mad at. Clint was.

“Honestly, how do you take camping out of camping, Stark?” he complained as they waited in the line. The kids probably hadn’t registered the fact that it was dinnertime, but they would. Kids sniffed out food like sharks.

“I’m sorry, did you want those kids to starve?”

“No, but you shouldn’t be eating salad while camping.”

“And what do you eat?”

“Spam sandwiches. The kids love those.”

“Ugh, why would you feed your kids that poison? Don’t you love them?”

“We ate that during the war,” Steve quickly said.

“See Barton? Poison.”

“It has all of six ingredients, you guys are just snobs.”

“Okay I am a snob,” Steve confessed, “But I refuse to be on the same snob level as Tony.”

“No one is on the same snob level as me.” Tony said proudly.

Salad was served. Along with piles of fruit, steak, green beans, steak fries, and some fake meat burger. Desserts were a choice of three pies or two cakes. The kids came racing in, as one cohesive stampede and proceeded to not only tear through the food, but also race off to their own table. Most not even giving their parents a quick glance. It was almost like being stood up, in a very strange way. Steve was at least looking forward to checking in on Damian, but instead the boy was in and out of the mess hall without even saying hello. Even Clint’s youngest stopped by before racing off. If anyone else cared that they were basically ignored by their offspring they didn’t mention it. Tony snarked, Clint snarked too, but as a middle class man, and Sam egged them on for sport.

The parents went from talking over dinner to talking over a campfire with alcohol, because that’s what camping became when you were over twenty-one: an excuse to drink beer and shoot the shit. As nice as it was, Steve was still happy to collapse in his bed in the tent, even though they were missing a person.

“You think he just fell asleep out there?”

Sam kicked off his shoes. “Knowing him? Probably.”

“Should we go get him?”

“Why? Let him catch a super cold, what’s the worst thing that could happen to him?”

Well there were a lot of things. An entire slew of things. Steve could probably name ten of them off the top of his head. He didn’t, he didn’t want Sam to worry and that would be a big, red flag. But he did put his shoes back on and headed out to the lake. Some of the kids were out playing, mostly the kids from other families and Clint’s oldest two. He knew for a fact Morgan was back with Tony, since he made sure to split early and get her to bed at a reasonable time, because sleep was the most important aspect of health. Apparently.

Thankfully he didn’t have to go far to find Damian.

“But I’m not tired,” Damian whined, even though afterwards he let out a big yawn.

“Really? You look tired to me.”

It didn’t matter how much Damian protested Steve could pick him up and haul him home without even thinking about it. All that squirming meant was that when Damian was changed into his night clothes and crammed between Steve and Sam in the single bed he fell asleep almost immediately.

But Steve didn’t.

He was exhausted and a bit shell shocked, but he didn’t just sleep. He never just slept. Instead he laid there and thought, because the silence was so overwhelming his mind had to fill it up for him and his exhaustion just made him more anxious. It buzzed at the sides of his brain. But it wasn’t focused, wasn’t something he could put into words so much. Just a feeling of dread, at what he’d seen, not twenty-four hours ago. At the knowledge that time was passing him by.

It was silly to be a bit sullen that Damian was becoming more independent; it wasn’t his normal feeling at all. Every one of Damian’s milestones was a relief. A little victory. He was doing something right. Sam didn’t like to diagnose or give any definite advice, but if he did Steve could certainly see him saying that Damian wasn’t a therapy aid. With independence came leaving and if Steve was using his presence to feel good when things got rough then there would be problems. He would probably also say that as teenage years came then relying on Damian for joy would just be futile. Steve ran a hand over a small head that needed a haircut and wondered what exactly he would do if that blood hadn’t been from a lost tooth. So much of his life revolved around making sure Damian was healthy and doing well. How did one fill up the space? How would those families far away fill up the space?

“Steve,” came Sam’s tired voice.

“Hm?”

“Go to sleep, damn.”

Whether it was part of Sam’s therapeutic repertoire or genuinely exasperation at Steve’s fidgeting, Steve did eventually find himself falling asleep. The good kind of sleep where it was black, and over with pretty quickly once Damian got to squirming. He remembered reading somewhere that there were some weird genetics that made young children early risers while teenagers needed to sleep later. Thus he knew that whatever time it was, it was too early.

“Daddy wake up!” Demanding was the only way to describe his tone. Damian’s eight year old hands rained down on his back. It didn’t hurt, in fact if Damian weren’t so loud he could probably sleep right through it.

“Come on Day, let him sleep.” Sam said.

Which was more motivation to get him up then Damian. Sarah Rogers did many things, but she did not raise a bad husband. No hairstyling, no shaving, he just put clothes on and followed his family to the canteen.

It was early, most of the other families were still mostly asleep. Morgan came with Clint’s oldest, Nathan, because Tony was probably still dead to the world, Tony’s sleep schedule seemed to have him actually falling asleep between three and ten in the morning. The kind people in the canteen were serving stacks of pancakes, with five flavors to choose from, along with other breakfast fare. Like juice, coffee, eggs, etc. A nice spread which Damian attacked with little restraint. He got a plate piled high with enough carbs and bacon to feed an actual adult and parked next to Morgan and Nathan.

The kids ate and talked about everything and nothing before decided quite quickly that now was the perfect time to go swimming. They darted out of the hall and down to the lake before any adult could really say anything to stop them or could remind them that none of them had swimsuits.

“Should we be letting them do that?” Sam asked.

“Let ‘em get sick. It builds antibodies or something.”

“That’s not how the cold works.” But Sam did start walking away from the lake and towards one of the hiking paths.

“Whatever, let’s let the lifeguard parent for a while. Stark and Barton should be out there soon. They won’t drown.”

And they probably wouldn’t miss the adults. Kids made instant connections with one another after mere hours of playing, it almost made Steve jealous. Childhood really did fly by and he didn’t appreciate it nearly enough.

“So, you wanna talk about what’s been bothering you? Husband to husband?”

“You say that like it’s never husband to husband.”

“I’ll admit sometimes you’re talking to the therapist.”

“Oh my, have you been having relations with your patient? Have you been taking advantage of me?” he teased.

“Go on teasing and distracting me, but if you don’t want to talk about it, you could just say so.”

That kicked the wind out of Steve’s sails. “It’s not that. It’s just hard to explain.”

“Like I said, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t reverse psychology me!” Steve went out of his way to kick a rock down the path. “We just, we-” He sighed. “We lost the victims last night, and some of them were kids.”

“And you were thinking of Damian?”

“And I was thinking of Damian.”

“As is normal.”

“I think I was just rattled last night is all.” He shrugged. “I let him go pretty easily today. Like normal.”

“You did. I just know that I gotta check up on you is all or else you let shit simmer.”

“Well we can’t all be on your emotional level. Some of us are humans.”

“Some of us know a few techniques to help us through.”

“And some of us want to know why your child is taking a dip in freezing, ice water.”

Of all the people Steve expected to run into Bucky was not top of the list. Bucky Barnes, who sat on the ledge of the overlook that faced right down towards the lake where the kids were still playing in the cold water. They didn’t even tell him they were going camping, did Bucky put a tracker on him? In him?

“How’d you know we were up here?” Sam asked.

“How could I not know? Rogers is wearing blue in a forest in fall.”

“Sorry I wasn’t expecting to get jumped.”

“You’re forgiven.” Bucky reached into a pocket on his sweatshirt and pulled out a few nuts to chew on. “I thought you hated camping?”

“This barely is camping. Stark insisted on this whole set up where there’s a chef and full beds. It’s called glamping.”

“Of course that’d be a thing.” Bucky stood up and wiped the crumbs off his sweatshirt.

“This a social visit?”

“‘Fraid not. You two wanted an update on Operation Super Babies, and I got one.”

“That so?” Sam asked. “Good?”

“I found the woman in charge of taking care of the babies. Don’t know if it’s good or bad.”

“How’d you find her?”

“Didn’t do anything special. Her name’s Maria Faulkner, but she’s been quiet for the past few years and living a normal life. I had to cross reference documents to make sure I had the right person.”

“You’d think she would’ve been more careful.”

“She’s been a public school teacher for a while now. Not sure she’s thought much of it since. So anyone want to go meet her?”

“Honestly Bucky? Why can’t you schedule these things?” Steve sighed.

“Because the second I have a breakthrough I come looking. You two want to meet her or not?”

“Is she close by?”

“No, she’s in Nevada.”

“Great.” Steve glanced at Sam, who looked frustrated and ready to take up the offer. “How about I go Sam? You make sure Damian doesn’t freeze to death?”

Sam’s frown went a bit crooked. “Fine.”

“Sounds good. Lead the way Buck.”

Leading the way involved a quick trek to the airport and a very expensive last minute ticket to Nevada where they got into a car and began the long drive through miles upon miles of brown. Just brown. Truly Nevada was up there with the most flat and boring state imaginable. No wonder they built Las Vegas.

“How’ve you been Buck?” Steve asked awkwardly. They’d spoken at least once a month since the last physical visit five months ago. A visit that happened without Damian, scheduled for very late Saturday evening, almost Sunday morning, and thus Damian was left with a sitter. Not that they did any sort of child appropriate activity in that hotel room. Bucky was not exactly subtle.

“I’ve been fine. Got some stories, but nothing major.” Bucky said casually. “I did see a Dora Milaje accidentally beam Shuri in the head.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s still designing and building if that’s what you’re asking. Honestly I think they knocked another idea in her head. She went full-on Stark and held herself up in her lab overnight once they patched her up.”

“Well, you know genius types,” he said, intent on keeping it to that. But his fool mouth had to open once again and say some fool things. “Hey Buck, how come you never want to talk to Damian?”

Steve almost got second hand cramps with how quickly Bucky’s shoulders went straight and immovable. “I’ve never said that.”

“But he’s eight and you haven’t even been in the same room as him.”

“That’s not true, I was once.”

“And how many years ago was that Buck? I mean, what’s wrong? Why do you avoid him like you do?”

“I don’t avoid him.”

“Yes you do. I don’t see how you can’t make time for him. He’s almost nine. He’s been in hospitals and-”

“Not for anything serious.”

“Still though. He doesn’t even know you exist.”

“And what’s the alternative Steve?”

“I dunno-”

“Neither do I!” Bucky yelled. “Do you want to tell your nine year old that he’s a clone of an assassin Steve? Is that the conversation you want to have?”

Whatever fight Steve had felt left him in an unusual display of cowardice. Or maybe it was acceptance. Sam probably had a word for it. “No.”

“Then why do you want me to do it?”

Steve sighed, “You know Buck if you were in his life earlier, maybe you wouldn’t have to explain it.”

“We’re here.” Bucky grunted.

Honestly Steve had expected an apartment, not a school. But he supposed that’s what working for the public meant. It was still early so none of the kids were around. But the lights were on in two of the five classrooms.

“How do you know she’s here?”

“Because her cellphone is here.”

Lazy on her part, but Steve wouldn’t complain. With no one around they could walk onto the campus without the stares. Bucky took charge, leading the way to the woman’s classroom at the furthest end of the campus. The building was mostly a line, and her classroom was as far down that line as possible. Otherwise there was a simple jungle gym and play area on the outside.

“What are we going to ask her?” Steve asked. Because he hadn’t even thought about it. Why were they storming this woman’s classroom? What exactly could she tell them? He doubted she had any high level detail, it’s why they could find her so easily.

“She might have a name,” Bucky answered. “Or something.”

“She might not even know what was happening. They could’ve told her nothing.”

“We might as well ask then.” Bucky showed an uncharacteristic determination. In the years since Hydra, Bucky often didn’t really care about much. Whatever desires Bucky had were always vague, and he rarely cared how they were fulfilled. That was another thing Sam probably had a word for. Steve just considered it confusing.

But Bucky opened the unlocked door and walked inside, Steve had to pause outside from the smell of smoke. Steve still had the same reaction to cigarettes because they were exceptionally rare in the twenty-first century. And it was alarming to smell it inside a building.

“Hello, gentlemen,” a husky voice said. “I don’t typically take drop ins.”

“We’ll just be a minute,” Bucky said. Steve followed him in, and spared a thought to the fact that they were two super soldiers about to interrogate a tiny, female school teacher. Might be overkill.

“Then feel free to take a seat.”

She was tiny. Incredibly so. Maybe just over five feet tall, thin as a rail, with piles of auburn hair on her head. She looked young, maybe in her early to mid-thirties. But she had to have been smoking for a while, and soon she would no longer look so young if her yellow teeth were to go by. Steve took a seat up front, but Bucky chose to stand against the wall near the windows. If the woman understood that they were not the fathers of a student, then she didn’t seem to care. Idly smoking while putting red marks on homework assignments.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” She said, cigarette halfway to her lips for another drag.

“We’re not here for a current student -” Bucky said.

“I figured that. I’m not stupid,” she clipped.

“We came to ask you about a child in your care almost ten years ago,” Steve quickly said. “When you were working out in Baltimore.”

No visible reaction, “And what are your questions?”

“Do you know who you were working for?”

“I know exactly who I was working for,” she said, cryptically. The ashes of her cigarette went into the nearby trash can. Steve didn’t dare glance at Bucky. She was so calm, but in the reports she had to euthanize nine babies. Was it her? Maybe they had the wrong person?

But Bucky clearly didn’t have that thought. “So I’m assuming that means you remember taking care of ten newborns.”

“Correct.” She took another calm drag. “Do you have a question?”

“We have one, what happened to the other nine?”

“Dead,” she said simply.

“And you killed them.”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why’d you do any of it?”

She chuckled. “Why does anyone do anything? They paid well for a skill that most consider useless.”

“And did you kill them for money?”

“Yes.”

Steve couldn’t believe she would just admit it like that. WIthout any shame or anger. Neutrally. A bad guy killed a child, but only a monster wouldn’t care.

“Why?”

“Because it was ordered.”

“Who ordered it?”

“I don’t know.” She spouted. “I received an order from my boss, Aaron Romano, and that was that.”

Aaron Romano. Steve remember that name. He was one of the many tried after Hydra was exposed, but he didn’t have any extra crimes tacked on other than ones related to treason. Others might’ve had murder, or terrorism charges, but Aaron had otherwise kept his hands out of the mud. If they brought her as a witness he’d be charged with their murder, perhaps even be willing to give up something useful in exchange.

“So why’d you save the one?”

She shrugged. “Again with these foolish questions.”

“Just answer it,” Bucky demanded.

“Because I thought it was foolish to simply throw away years of work from one set back,” she said simply.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Bucky’s face twisted into something both frustrated and pained before he turned and headed out the door, somehow both furious and silent. Maria didn’t react to this sudden change at all, eyes sliding over to Steve with the same neutral assessment as before.

“So, why’d you choose him?” Steve asked, of all the questions he could’ve asked this felt the most pressing. “Why him over the other nine?”

“Because he was the first to wake up from his nap.” She reached over and snuffed her cigarette out on a small ashtray.

Well that was a bust. Steve left the room feeling almost empty, and with nothing but a name of someone already put away for life. It felt like he’d given more then he’d gotten, and as he walked out he had the feeling Bucky felt the same. They were both absolutely silent as they got back into the car and began driving back to the airport. Steve tried to respect that Bucky might not want to talk about anything, but there was a reason he didn’t go into therapy.

“So what’d you make of her?” He asked.

“Not much to make. She didn’t tell us anything important.”

“But we knew she might not. She was pretty far down the decision train. What do you make of what she did though.”

“Nothing to make out. What’s done is done.”

“Did you bring me along for emotional support?”

Bucky’s jaw went tight.

“You know I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to help with.”

“Look I know this situation must be stressful for you, but I think it would be nice if you got to know Damian. You don’t have to drop everything to live with us, but -”

“Why, I’m not his birth father.”

“But you have a relationship with me and Sam. Damian’s just as much a part of it.”

Steve’s sentence hung in the air for an unsettling amount of time. Long enough for Steve to think that Bucky was somehow going to run even though he was driving the car.

“I do see him. If you must know. I check in on him once in a while.”

“How?”

“When I’m in town I’ll look in on him when he’s in school or something.”

“And what do you think?”

“He’s fine. It’s fine.” Bucky sighed. “Look, I don’t know why I don’t. When I met him a few years ago I thought about visiting him more often. I just never could make myself do it.”

There was a breakthrough waiting somewhere in there, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and he couldn’t brute force Bucky through one as much as he wanted to. Mental blocks were to be whittled down over time, not charged through immediately.

“By the way, I don’t know when his birthday was decided on,” Bucky said, reaching behind him with one arm to fish around in the back. He pulled out a labo kit for the Switch Steve had bought for Damian. When Bucky found out about any of this he did not know.

“Who’s it from?”

“Do you really think he’s going to ask?”

Despite the time zones the whole incident ended up taking up most of the day, and Steve didn’t arrive back to the campsite until dinner time. The canteen was serving food. Steve didn’t really register exactly what they were serving, but he got a plate and sat down at the table next to a shivering Damian and an amused Sam.

“How long did you swim?” Steve asked.

“Allllll day,” Damian said. He looked both proud and extremely cold as he tried to get as much chili as physically possible into his body. “We play Marco Polo, and raced, and wrestled.”

How that filled eight hours Steve did not know. But Sam looked rested and happy so at least it took the burden off of him.

“And we’re gonna swim again after s'mores.”

“Sounds like a busy day.”

“Yeah. I’m in demand.”

“How was your trip?” Sam asked.

“Where’d you go daddy?” Damian asked.

“I, uh, I went with a friend to check up on something.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause he asked me to go. And, we support our friends in this household.”

Amazing parenting, if he said so himself. Truly he deserved an award for how he handled the entire day. Captain America, the father with the plan.

After dinner an ungodly amount of s'mores were consumed, not just by Damian but by every minor and half the adults. Clint had absolutely no restraint and was a roasted marshmallow factory, doling out the stuff as often as eating them. Hell, even Morgan was allowed to eat several before Tony started looking concerned.

Then the kids once again raced off to the lake for one last dip before bedtime. Leaving the adults to drink beer and shoot the shit once again.

“Seriously, is this what camping is to you Barton? Beer and sugar?”

“What do you think it is?” Clint asked. He still had some smores lined up next to his beer.

“To appreciate nature.”

“Pft, yeah right. When you camp you should be eating and drinking. And maybe fishing or hiking if you’re athletic.”

“I bought hiking shoes for nothing “ Tony complained. “By the way, did you get lost Rogers? Where’d you go all day?”

“I got a visit from Bucky.”

“They needed to visit the west coast.” Sam filled in. “Damian-related.”

“Find out anything interesting?”

“We found the woman who took care of him after he was, I dunno, born? After they cloned him.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Sounds like a bust,” Clint said. “What was she like?”

“Cold. Just, I don’t think she really cared about what she participated in.”

“So she knew?” Tony filled in.

“Yeah, she knew she was raising clones. There were ten of them and she only saved one.”

“Wow, that’s dark... Thanks for bringing that to beer time.”

Clint quickly turned the conversation to sports to dispel the dark mood that hung in the air. Steve appreciated it, but he did notice that Sam got sort of quiet afterwards. It wasn’t unusual. Sam always clammed up when it came to Damian’s life before them, and thus far Steve’s attempts to get him to open up about it were like grabbing smoke. Steve tried not to let the silence bother him, but he was very happy when they called it a night and dragged their children to bed.

And if Sam held Damian closer that night, then Steve didn’t need to say anything.


	4. Four

This certainly was a sight Sam hated seeing.

He’d hated hospitals and would likely continue to hate them until his death. Pediatric wards tried to alleviate some of the stress of a hospital, but there still was no mistaking the smell of cleaning solution and the annoying announcements that interrupted whatever sliver of peace one managed to carve out for themselves. Hospitals were terrible, depressing places and he wished he didn’t have to come back to one.

“How long am I gonna be here?” Damian asked, voice a bit weak and sad. He understandably looked miserable sitting in the big bed with his Switch on but untouched in his lap.

“That’s a question for the doctor buddy,” he said. The Switch had been in his backpack, but Sam still made sure to bring up books and any homework or lessons he’d miss. As Damian got older his trips to the pediatric ward had gotten longer though less frequent. He’d come in and endure treatment, come home and mostly remain on the straight and narrow, then slowly fall into the same bad habit that landed him here in the first place.

“I hate it here,” he complained.

“I know. But maybe this is the lesson that you should take your medicine.” He set the bag by Damian’s bed so he could easily grab it. “Your teacher said you’re having a test next week so you better study for it.”

“Uggghhh.” Damian shimmied down until he was under the sheets.

“Knock knock,” came Pepper at the door. At her heel was Morgan carrying a bag of candy. “How’s he?”

“He’s complaining, so he’s fine.”

Damian was clearly a little uncomfortable having people in his room when he was laid up like this, but he thankfully came out from under the sheets to chat with Morgan. The two were pretty close in age and got along well. So it at least brightened Damian’s mood to have a friend around.

“Do you need anything?” Pepper offered quietly as the kids chatted. She was always worried when she had to make these visits even though it was routine for Sam by now since Sam could typically tell this was coming. Damian had been sluggish for at least a week.

“No thanks. He just needs to listen to the doctors is all.”

“Can they not give him an alternative?”

“They do. Damian’s just stubborn.” Sam didn’t know if that was a Bucky problem, or if the kid just picked up on Steve’s bullheadedness. Maybe a bit of nurture and a bit of nature.

Visiting hours were rather limited in the pediatric ward for nonfamily so Morgan and Pepper could only stay for an hour before leaving. Seeing as it was the first day of Damian’s hospitalization, he wanted to make sure the kid was ready for the long haul.

“I talked to your doctor. She said you might be here for a month at least.”

“What?” The news tanked whatever positive mood Morgan managed to leave him in. “Why?”

“Because you’re getting bigger and you need to gain at least ten pounds before they’ll let you out.”

Damian slumped back into his pillow. “This sucks.”

“Yeah I know.” He brushed some of Damian’s long hair out of his face as a probably not great idea entered his head. A month was forever for an eleven year old. Damian needed incentive. “How about this, if I hear good things from the doctor I’ll give you a treat when you get out?”

“What kinda treat?”

“What do you want?”

“Hmmm.” Damian picked at the dry skin on his lip. “I want... To dye my hair.”

Well, not what he was expecting, but markedly tame coming from an eleven year old.

“Alright yeah. You do good here then I’ll take you to get your hair dyed.”

“Any color?”

“Any color.”

Bribing a kid without consulting Steve likely wasn’t the best idea, and there definitely was a part of him that was regretful that he went through the bribery route as well. But he justified it as incentivizing and tried not to think of it as a slippery slope.

Steve arrived a bit later in the evening with a busted lip and a request that no one watch the news, which was hilarious considering Sam got an alert from the news app on his phone that Steve was dealing with a tussle downtown. Sam chose not to start anything so Steve could check up on Damian before they got kicked out by a nurse.

Damian didn’t mention anything regarding the hair dye, and that was probably for the best. For years Damian had resisted the more retro haircuts and styles that Steve would vastly have preferred to see on him. Sam suspected Steve’s issue was partly old fashioned grooming habits, and partly because Bucky’s, and by extension Damian’s, hair was as thick as it was dense. The only thing that saved Damian’s hair from the barber was religiously taking care of it, because if he went two days without brushing then Steve began making threats.

So it was their little secret. A secret they kept for a month until Damian left the hospital ten pounds heavier and ready to go back to school and see his friends. But he did not forget Sam’s promise, and he practically dragged Sam down to a hair salon downtown.

It was a small little shop with several women all dressed up with different hair colors and elaborate make-up. There was a wall selling the owner’s hair care line and another wall with celebrity headshots plastered on a pink background. The girl at the front took down Damian’s name and set him up with a woman named Rosa who had hot pink hair, filled in eyebrows, and a pair of four inch heels on.

“Okay what hair do you want sweetie?” She held a ring of fake hair sections with color added to them. Damian flipped through it and found four colors that he wanted done like a tie-dye T-shirt. So it was good to hear that they were going all out for this.

So there was more to dying hair than Sam thought, and most of it was boring enough that he ended up falling asleep in his seat as the hairdresser chatted with Damian. He woke up when the bill needed to be paid.

Outside in the sun he got a good look of Damians orange, blue, and green hair along with his glowing face.

“You like it?” he asked.

“Yep!” Damian said, practically bouncing as they headed down the street.

“Alright, let’s go show your dad.”

Steve’s motorcycle was in the drive which meant he was on the couch when Sam and Damian came through the front door.

“Hey, hey dad! Look at my hair!” Damian proudly pranced to the couch, pulling Steve’s attention away from his phone. His first face was both surprised and just a touch horrified, but Steve managed to turn it to just shocked before Damian noticed.

“Hey, Day. What’d you do to your hair?”

“Papa took me to dye it since I acted good in the hospital! Look, it’s tie-dye.” He bowed his head so Steve could see all the colors on top of his head.

“Looks nice, Day. Did you finish your homework for class?”

That seemed to rain on Damian’s parade a little bit and his face fell. “... Most of it.”

“Well why don’t you finish it before dinner?”

“Uggghhh,” Damian complained, but he did drag his feet to his room to finish whatever assignment he wasn’t able to complete.

Once Damian was in his room Steve turned to Sam, looking more annoyed than angry. “This is insubordination.”

“I only follow you into battle.” Sam tried not to laugh at the way Steve clearly was trying not to pout.

“Does an eleven year old really need tie-dye hair?”

“He’s expressing himself.”

“He’s eleven.”

“So?”

“He should learn how to take care of himself. His head is a mop.”

“He’s fine. It’s the twenty-first century, we’re not limited to the same five hair styles.”

Steve sighed. “I guess if he hates it he’ll be convinced to get a haircut.”

A wish that was crushed fairly quickly when Damian didn’t change course and declare that he hated the change. It was popular with his friends, and he liked showing off. Honestly Sam suspected it was for the best. It was just another thing that separated Damian from Bucky. Made life easier as Damian grew older.

Damian returned to school happy to meet his friends and neutral about his classes. He was still in the same system as his other schools and brought home packets of Chinese characters he had to learn by the end of the week. Normally Sam didn’t see Damian until the evening before Sam’s shifts when he came home from playing games with his friends at the park. Honestly Damian was adjusting to middle school significantly better than Sam expected considering the fact that he missed the first month of classes.

He was also old enough to stay home alone for a short period of time, but not long enough for a weekend. So sometimes they had to bring him along when they went to New York.

New York trips weren’t always about official business. In fact, more often than not, Avenger’s business was short and sweet because the Avenger’s were basically children and couldn’t sit still. People tended to break off and either socialize or swap ideas. Sam could typically count on certain people being in certain places after meetings, too. Clint would turn on the game, Thor would raid the fridge, all while Bruce and Tony “consulted” with one another which often was code for shoot the shit but sometimes with science.

“Mr. Hansbury wants me to join track and field,” Damian said, half a Thor-sandwich in one hand as he half-heartedly tried to steal the ball from Steve. Just ten minutes ago they were playing a game of one-on-one, and honestly Sam managed to hold his own longer than he expected. But he was glad for this break, and for the Cheeto and honey Thor-sandwich Damian had brought him.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, I set the record for the hundred meter during gym and he thinks I could go to state with it.”

“Oh so you just expect me to fill out the form?”

“Yeah? I need parent permission.”

“You want me to fill out a form to play in a sport you’re already good at?”

“I haven’t competed in it.”

“But it’s a solo sport that your teacher already thinks you naturally excel at?”

“Yeah?”

“So, no.”

“What!?”

“There’s no point in you playing a solo sport where you already know you’re gonna win.”

Damian turned pleading eyes to Sam, “Pap!”

“Uh uh.” He replied. “This is between you and the big guy.”

“Tell ya what, Day.” Steve said, holding the ball, “You can challenge me for it.”

“Alright. I wanna do push ups.”

The ball was thrown towards the corner and Damian hurriedly dropped his half eaten half of the sandwich on the plate.

Sam thought this was a little mean. He certainly didn’t think there was anything wrong with getting Damian in an organized sport; it might keep him entertained and out of trouble. But he wasn’t about to stop the little competition. It was how Steve parented, he felt like just giving Damian what he wanted wasn’t good. He needed to work for it.

“Alright, you have to do at least a fourth of the push ups that I do.”

“Fine.”

The last time they did this Damian got eleven push ups and Steve had gotten thirty-five. Of course Steve could do significantly more than that, but he had already decided beforehand to give Damian what he wanted and the push ups were for show. Since Sam had waved his right to give his opinion he didn’t know how this one would go.

Damian clearly hadn’t picked up that his father sometimes went easy on him, so he tried to quickly knock out as many push-ups as possible before his skinny arms buckled in on him and he fell face first on the wood after thirteen. Steve kept going, like a machine. And once Damian recovered he hopped up and laid on Steve’s back.

“Morgan! Morgan help me!”

Morgan hopped up from her spot with a giggle and also laid on Steve’s back, but their combined weight didn’t slow down Steve who mostly just looked a bit amused at their efforts. He capped it at fifty and then rolled to get the kids off his back.

“Redo! I want a redo!” Damian protested. Both he and Morgan quickly got to their feet. “Get any other Avenger in here and I can beat ‘em.”

“Alright, let’s get Thor.”

“Except him.”

“Sounds like you’re all talk then. Tell ya what, you want to join a team sport then you can. But you’re not joining track just to show off.”

And that was that. Damian ran off with Morgan to sulk and play games. They stuck around for another hour or so before getting on a plane heading back for DC and back to the normal parts of their lives. The old daily grind could get a bit boring compared to the high stakes life or death situations he was occasionally thrown in, but Steve never forgot to appreciate them. After years upon years of being a full time agent Steve knew that these calm times did not last.

Steve’s life without a mission was boring. But not boring enough to make him happy to get a call from HQ.

“You both have to be in China in ten hours,” Maria Hill said. “You’ll be flying out business class from Marshall Airport. I can fill you in on the basics while you both get ready.”

When Maria said get ready she typically meant get ready immediately. So Steve didn’t really need to say anything for Sam to start packing, a phone cradled to his ear as he called his mom. Steve returned to his call with Maria to get the rest of the details.

“China has been a difficult region to scout,” Hill said. “We’ve had several rotating groups out there over the past few years and have found some areas of note that we’re still looking into. Twenty-four hours ago, one of our scouts discovered another person on the line. We don’t know how long they’ve been listening in so he was pulled out this morning. We’re sending you, Widow, and Sam in to replace him and follow up on the last few pieces. We expect ten days in Shanghai.”

Great, exactly what Steve wanted to hear.

“You’ll be flying out of Thurgood Marshall in two and a half hours. An agent will meet you there with additional information. And also…”

“Yeah?”

“One of our databases was hacked about twelve hours ago. We’re not sure what they saw, but Damian’s records were there.”

“Who did it?”

“We don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

“Because digital espionage is complicated, but we do know it was a remote attack, not physical and that they didn’t manage to actually copy anything. That being said, we don’t know what they got a look at. But they did get our real servers, which has got some of the guys in tech in a panic.”

“Do you think they’d come after Damian?”

“Enemies going after agents families is incredibly rare. It’s often too much of a drain on the resources to do so. And, in your case, you’ll be able to drum up a lot of support very quickly if they were to kill him.”

“But they do. Sometimes.”

“Yes, sometimes. Typically as a last ditch effort.”

Which didn’t make him feel any better. They’d slowly been chipping away at Hydra over the years. Well, them and others. But Damian had another target on his back, completely separate from who raised him.

“Look,” Maria said. “It’s entirely possible that this is all a coincidence. But it’s also possible that there’s nothing in Shanghai and that they’re trying to separate you from Damian. There’s also a possibility that they’ve effectively sold this information to someone else and a third party is involved.”

“And there’s no way to send someone else out.”

“I’m afraid not. Wanda and Bruce lack the skill set.”

And Thor was likely off world. Clint and Tony were retired.

“Do you think you can forge a passport?”

They could, that was the easy part. Sam, however, was the hard part.

“We are not taking Damian to China. Have you lost your damn mind?” Sam demanded. He’d kindly packed a bag for himself and for Steve.

“He’s safer with us then here.”

“Says who?”

“It’s a gut feeling.”

“You just need a snack.” He threw a sweatshirt into his carrier. “My mom’s on the way let her deal with him.”

“Sam what if this is true? Then the only thing between Damian and Hydra is your mother.”

Sam’s shoulders grew tense. “And China’s supposed to be better? We have no one else out there. No. He’s staying here.”

“I’d rather keep an eye on him then leave him. Besides he’s my son -” Steve clamped his mouth shut just as Sam almost physically reeled back.

If this were the thirties, if Sam were a dame, Steve would have been beaten within an inch of his life and he would have deserved it.

“So you think just ‘cause his last name’s Rogers he ain’t my son. What the fuck you think I’ve been doing all these years, playing maid?”

“N-no I -”

“Damian is as much my son as yours. And I’m not going to just drag him halfway across the world just ‘cause you’ve got trust issues!”

They both suddenly went quiet when they heard the front door open. Steve didn’t like fighting in front of Damian, but Sam absolutely would not do it. Unfortunately that didn’t save Steve as Sam went and closed the door to their bedroom before Damian got too far into the house.

“Look,” Steve whispered. “I’m not suggesting this lightly. I don’t want him there, but I think it’s safer to have him with us and Natasha than here with your mother.”

“And what if something happens to him? Huh? We can’t both infiltrate and protect him.”

“But we’re the best suited. What would you do if something happened to both him and your mom?”

It was a low blow and Steve didn’t like giving it any more than Sam liked receiving it. But it had to be said. They were running on a lot of ifs and it had to be decided on which one they wanted to bank on.

“Fine, but you’re explaining it to him. I have to be out first, so I'm leaving now.”

Sam shut his luggage with an angry slam and left. Steve heard him quickly talk to Damian out in the living room, but didn’t hear exactly what was said. When Sam was angry he tended to give Steve exactly what he asked for in the worst way so he definitely did not make any of this easier.

When Steve walked out Damian was busy stuffing three nectarines into the front pocket of his hoodie while furiously trying to chew and swallow half a sandwich.

“Hey, Day.” Steve already felt awkward. He did feel very stupid asking his kid to skip out of the country just on the chance that he wasn’t safe in his own home. How was he supposed to properly communicate to his sheltered eleven year old that his life might be in danger and that this was the best plan his father was able to come up with?

“Hi Dad,” Damian said through a mouthful of bread. He didn’t pay Steve much mind as he searched for some other snack to pilfer. “Wassup?”

“Listen, Damian, I need you to pack a bag for a few days,” he said.

That got his attention, if for a bit. “What for?”

“We’re going out of the country. So go pack for a few days okay? Right now.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” he said quickly. “Please just do what I said.”

Damian walked to his room after giving Steve a very suspicious look. First hurdle jumped. Steve made sure he had everything he needed in his luggage and that the house was ready to be empty for at least a few days.

“Wait!” Damian yelled in the hallway. “How do I know you’re not evil? Say something only my -”

“You’ve been trying to hide a bottle of bright orange hair dye under your bed for over a month.”

“Oh…”

“You’re lucky I haven’t tossed it. Hurry up, let’s go.”

Damian did follow instructions, hauling his luggage to the car and sitting quietly in the passenger’s seat as Steve drove them to the airport where the Shield agent waiting for them did blend in fairly well, but Steve was fairly good at picking them out now and thus wasn’t exactly startled when the man approached him.

“You sure you want to do this? He’s a bit young for the life isn’t he?”

“The alternative is leaving him when there’s a possible threat.” Steve took the passport and checked it over. They used Damian’s school photo which showed him without the bright hair. Which would certainly be a problem. “Do you have other suggestions?”

“You could leave him with an officer?”

“Which one?”

“If you leave him with me I can be in contact with one?”

“No, it’s fine.” He passed the fake passport to Damian.“Day don’t lose this alright?”

“Got it.”

The agent left them and Steve had about half an hour before they boarded. Steve found Damian a knit cap to shove all of Damian’s unruly, bright hair under. Thankfully the wait for their plane went easy since Damian was utterly entertained by the new place.

Steve let Damian have the window seat so he could watch as the plane take off. Thankfully the newness of everything entertained Damian through the beginning. He didn’t really ask questions at first and Steve felt thankful that he didn’t have to actually explain anything and a bit worried that his eleven year old would only ask one easily answered question before allowing himself to be whisked off to another country. Perhaps it was the paranoia of the situation, but he also thought that maybe he should run Damian through a few exercises when they got home so he knew better.

Eventually the view outside got to be a bit boring and Damian turned to his switch to entertain him. So far so good, he had his kid on the plane and nothing had gone wrong. He was definitely knocking on wood thus far. Hopefully the next fifteen hours stayed similarly calm.

In the calm Steve went over what he needed to know and what he needed to find out. Unfortunately there wasn’t much given to him.

“What’re we gonna do when we land?” Damian asked.

“We’re going to meet with your pap.”

“Why is he there?”

“For work. What game are you playing?” Steve asked, because he didn’t want to discuss all of this on the plane.

“Hellblade.”

“What’s it about?”

“A lady who is psychotic has to go to hell to save the soul of her dead husband or something.”

“... Who bought that for you?”

The flight had no layover, which was great for Steve, but terrible for Damian and therefore terrible for Steve. Because Damian was an eleven year old and he eventually got bored of his games, but then he also got bored of the movies on offer. And of playing cards. He wasn’t tired enough to sleep when they switched off the lights. But then his Switch was entertaining and then it was not. Then the food came and the snacks and the nice lady gave him more ice cream, but there were still hours left. When they entered eleven out of thirteen hours he began asking when they would land even though there was a screen with the flight overview already up.

And it wasn’t just Damian. Every hour or so the same baby seemed to start screaming, and there were twins up in first class who raced down the aisle every chance they got. The flight attendants all seemed used to the contained chaos that Steve used to just block out with headphones and a sleep mask.

Ironically Damian fell asleep about half an hour before their descent and stayed asleep even as people got up to deplane Steve ended up carrying him off the plane and hauling both him and their carry ons off to the lobby where Natasha was waiting.

“I thought Sam was joking,” she said, amused.

“‘Fraid not.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a kid on a mission.”

“Who was the last?”

“A month ago. Barton took Izzy because Laura couldn’t watch her.”

“And how’d that go?”

“Izzy was fine. Barton on the other hand…” She sighed, “But it’s still cute that he’s small enough for you to carry.”

“He'll always be small enough for me to carry.”

Well that silence did not need to be filled. Steve woke Damian up and they both got their things. Thankfully customs wasn’t too rough with them, though they didn’t let Steve through without questioning the supplements he brought for Damian. Once officially in the country, they were free to get to the safehouse.

“So, Day,” Natasha said. “How much Chinese do you know?”

“Mostly just Mandarin.”

“Can you read it?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I can’t read it.”

“I’m surprised Nat, I thought you knew everything,” Steve said.

“I know many things Rogers. Probably more than you.”

“Probably.”

She turned back to Damian, “What’s that say?” she asked, pointing to a sign.

“Uhm, it’s a cart with Dàn bǐng.”

“Great, thanks.” She stepped off the curb and walked over to the cart.

“Alright, Day,” Steve said once she was across the road. “We’re only going to be here for a week, maybe two. So there’s going to be some rules.”

“Okay?”

“First of all, you have to stick close to either me or your father. Second of all, keep your hat on. Also if either of us or Nat gives you an order you follow it okay?”

“Got it.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

No he didn’t. Steve could see that Damian was zoning out and just saying what he thought would end the conversation. They’d probably have to have it again later on, because if Damian didn’t then they were in for a whole lot of trouble.

Natasha returned with her snack and brought them to the safehouse. It was small and a bit cramped, with peeling paint and only a bed as furniture. Not even a pot to cook with. But Sam was there and he was already sending an update to their handler in the states.

“Pap!” Damian yelled, racing to Sam and giving him a hug.

“Hey Day.” Sam wrapped an arm around the squirming child. “How was your flight?”

“So booooring!” Damian groaned. “You just sit and don’t do anything.”

“Yep, that sounds like a flight. Why don’t you go rest up a bit?’

“But I’m not tired.”

“Just go and rest your eyes for a bit okay? We’re not going to be doing anything for a bit anyway.”

Damian let out the most annoyed groan an eleven year old could muster then grabbed his Switch and climbed onto the bed. Less than five minutes after booting up his game he was dead to the world. Leaving Steve alone with Sam.

“I can’t believe you actually brought him,” he said, in that calm yet firm voice.

“Why not?”

“Because it was stupid.”

“Clint brought Izzy on a mission last I heard.”

“Izzy is almost seventeen.”

“So? If anything that’s worse. At least eleven year olds aren’t as independent. He knows to stick with us.”

“A sixteen year old can fight back.”

“We’ll fight back for him.”

Sam sighed. “Whatever, you got what you wanted.”

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Steve said quickly. “It’s just what I figured was best.”

“Yeah, and lord knows it’s not best if you don’t like it.”

“Sam come on-”

“Perimeter’s clear,” Natasha said, just half a second after opening the door. “What happened to the kid?”

“He’s sleeping,” Sam answered. “And I’d like to get a plan together in the meantime.”

“We already have a plan,” she said. “There are a couple of places that showed up on a scan that could have been used by Hydra. We’ll check ‘em.”

“How many are there?”

“Five. Three are in the countryside. One we’ll need to get into at night.”

“Why?”

“It’s near a few homes, they suspect someone’s keeping an eye on it. Don’t know if that’s true though.”

“Great. Wonderful.” Sam sighed. “Are we taking Damian out or is someone staying with him?”

“You can’t just leave him?” Natasha asked.

“No we can’t just leave him!” Sam replied before Steve could.

“We’ll have to see,” Steve said, “If it seems dangerous someone can stay with him.”

“Where’s the nearest?”

“A half hour drive from here,” Natasha said. “Low priority, but we’re in the area.”

Which meant they had to. And they had to do it at night, both to avoid prying eyes and to give Sam and Natasha a chance to catch up on some rest. The one unknown aspect of their mission was Damian. Who woke up in time for dinner and thus was hungry. Steve left a note for Sam and Natasha and then followed his son out to find sustenance.

The real danger of leaving a safe house was providing more of an opening for someone to find and follow them. So Steve wanted to get out and back in, Damian not so much. With glee only possible of children, Damian put all of that expensive, private school tuition to work and struck up a conversation with anyone who’d sit down long enough to listen. Most seemed amused that his son was so fluent. Steve just hoped that Damian didn’t act like a little trickster and inform everyone who they were.

“Do you want anything Dad?” Damian said in front of a small restaurant. The menu was displayed with absolutely no English translation.

“Just don’t get me anything too weird.”

“If a bunch of people eat it is it weird?”

“You know what I mean.”

Unfortunately Steve’s food flexibility was limited, even in the best of times. He liked to know what was in things, and if he didn’t then he didn’t like to eat them. Bucky had been the adventurous one.

“It’s pork.” Damian handed him a few buns. Steve didn’t know whether to trust Damian or not, he’d certainly been tricked into consuming several items he wouldn’t have otherwise because Damian liked half truths. In this case he didn’t have anyone else to ask. So he trusted Damian and found that, at least in this case, the trust was not betrayed. At least, he was pretty sure that was only pork.

They took some back to the room for Sam and Natasha who were grateful when they all had to leave after sundown.

He figured having Damian with him would be difficult, but he wasn’t prepared for how difficult it would be. He was a child and this was a big adventure to him; like he was the protagonist in all of his books and games. Ready to fight, and happy with all the new sights and sounds that the adults around him didn’t really understand. Here in China, Steve had little control over Damian for the first time in a long time, and that was scary.

“Don’t go too far ahead,” Sam ordered. They had to bring him, just in case. In America, leaving a kid in a building with a lot of people would have meant that at least someone had noticed something. But in China, where none of them really knew the customs, it would be too easy for someone to whisk Damian away and no one noticing anything off. The base was in a forested area in the mountains. He just wanted to get in and then get out.

“Damian!” Steve yelled. Damian yelled back; he wasn’t too far off.

“The spot’s nearby,” Natasha said, pointing to her right. “Just to the east.”

“Damian, this way!” he yelled. The steps changed direction and began heading back towards them.

“I think the entrance is here.” She brushed aside some leaves to reveal a hatch. The device she brought cracked the code and she was the first inside. Followed closely by Sam.

“Damian!” he yelled. In just a second it seemed like Damian had gone from approaching them to just out of sight. Steve spun around trying to find him again and yet, somehow, it was like Damian had completely disappeared.

“Damian!” His voice faded quickly out here. Steve’s walking turned into a jog as he tried to pick up any sound. Any footstep that might be Damian’s or any shout. It was like the forest swallowed the kid up whole. But it also harder to hear much of anything, with the way his heart raced.

In the past few years, Steve’s number one fear had gone from fairly intangible, a general concern that the world would end, to more real: losing Damian Damian getting hurt or kidnapped. The worst case scenarios blended together in his head and he could see Damian being dragged away and hurt and separated from him forever. Just like Bucky had been.

Voices cleared his head like the sun cleared the fog. At the base of the mountain he heard chatter, and followed it until he found a little house with an old woman standing outside talking to Damian.

“Damian!” he yelled. Damian jumped, but didn’t jump as high as the old woman. Who seemed downright shocked at the sudden noise.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Excuse yourself, we’re going.”

Damian quickly said something to the woman, who waved good-bye and said a few words. Steve didn’t really care what she said. Once they were a decent distance away Steve grabbed Damian’s arm and yanked him close.

“I told you to stay close!”

“Bu-”

“No buts! I told you to listen to me and so far you’ve been goofing around!” When Damian looked to be zoning out Steve gave his arm a quick shake to get his attention back, “No more running around! And do as you’re told. I don’t want anymore trouble from you.”

Damian pouted and was surly for the rest of the night as the continued on with their mission. Sam clearly noticed but chose not to comment, and Natasha stayed respectfully mum on the issue. They finished up their mission and left the area.

For the next few days Damian’s mood did not improve. He was annoyed at everything and everyone, and stuck his head into his Switch, only to come up for air when told to or when there was food. As much as Steve disliked the change, it was certainly easier to manage Damian this way than when he was racing around.

As far as the mission went, it was okay. They found some information, mostly receipts for weapons or labor all stored on disks or harddrives. But nothing too detailed. That data was given to the analysts who were much better at getting details off of such specific information than Steve was. All four of them left China with no injuries and, hopefully, no tags or eyes on them. Sam made sure that Damian got on top of all the work he’d missed and Steve filled out reports and just reminded himself to be thankful that a bad mood was the worst that happened.

It took a bit for the guys in analysis to get back with him on the receipts. They had to cross reference, not only with one another, but with other information in order to get a clearer picture of what exactly was sold and who to. This information was rarely useful, but when it was useful it was invaluable. And what they got back to him was a lot closer to invaluable then useless.

Hydra sold off what they could from the abandoned bases, including information on people. Bucky was explicitly mentioned in the report the analysis guys made, all it said was that they sold information on Bucky’s location seven years after he abandoned his post. And this was sold for a quarter of a million dollars. Not a whole lot of money when one considered just how valuable Bucky had been to them.

There were other details, but Steve really got stuck on the experiment and research section. It listed genetic information as an item, but didn’t specify if it was research, cells, or an actual subject.

Steve had a strong feeling that Damian was on this list somewhere. Either his location, or what they did to make him. Perhaps what they were planning on doing to him once he was old enough. He couldn’t exactly say for complete certainty that


	5. Five

Two bananas, a handful of spinach, and an apple went into the Vitamix, along with three bottles of the adult calorically dense shake, and a scoop of whey protein. After some hesitance a handful of Skittles and a Little Debbie also went into the blender. The contents were then blended, on high, until they turned into a questionable, brown liquid that was dumped into one of the mismatched glasses from their cabinet.

“Wow, that looks healthy-ish,” Sam said, because he had to comment.

“Unfortunately,” Damian muttered.

Sam watched as his only son, the love of his life, squeezed his eyes shut and plugged his nose before quickly chugged the vile looking concoction down.

“Was it as delicious as it looked?”

Damian, for what it was worth, didn’t look like he was going to puke. But he definitely looked just a bit more uneasy. “Mhm,” he grunted.

“Is there a reason you’re suddenly drinking those shakes?”

“Because I passed out at practice yesterday,” Damian answered. “Coach thinks I’m starving myself and he says he wants me to gain weight or he won’t let me try out.” The glass went in the dishwasher.

“How much?”

“At least fifteen.”

“That’s going to be tough.” Damian was still rail thin and just a bit gaunt. He still shot up like kids his age tended to, but it would take a lot of shakes to put on that fifteen.

“Nah, I’ve done the math. I just need to drink double what the doctor’s prescribed.”

“And you think you’ll be able to do that?”

“I can certainly try.” Damian slipped his favorite pair of raggedy shoes on his feet, “See ya, Pap.”

“See you.”

Like most summer days, Sam probably wouldn’t see Damian again unless he came home for lunch, which he didn’t always do. And since it was a Friday, there was a big possibility that Sam wouldn’t see Damian until late that night when he came home, or when they were all awake the next morning.

Honestly he probably wouldn’t have thought about Damian at all until he saw the kid again if he didn’t get a text from Bucky about an hour after Damian left.

[James] Your son is weird.

Which, by itself, was an odd text and one that sent up a feeling of hope that was unwarranted. It was unlikely that Bucky had decided to meet with Damian on some random Friday morning.

[Self] Where tf are you?

[James] Africa, like always.

[James] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

The link opened up to the TikTok app, which Sam had to download and create a username for. Showing Damian, green hair and all, at first wearing a pair of sunglasses and a beanie. But quickly taking both off to music, the clip ended with a shot of Damian next to the display depicting a younger Bucky. Both making the same face, the only difference being the hair and Damian’s skinnier face. The next clip was of a girl fighting a chicken.

That was definitely from Damian’s field trip to the museum which had been months ago. As much as the clip made him feel a surge of panic, it was clearly enough of a joke to Damian that he didn’t think enough about it to bring it up. And Sam would have remembered a joke, which Damian was prone to, of any biological connection between him and Bucky.

[Self] What do you just watch Damian’s social media?

[James] You don’t

[Self] No! Why are you doing that?

[James] Because I care about my child’s well-being  
[James] He’s kinda funny

[Self] He deserves a mode of self expression without worrying about his parents watching.

[James] But what about the sexual predators  
[James] On the internet  
[James] Or the murderers

[Self] Like you?

[James] Which one am I

[Self] Why do you need to ask?

[James] Fuck you

Truly Bucky was a man of quick wit, one that Sam could never hope to match. Instead he switched out from the conversation and went back to the app. It turned out that Damian regularly posted to his account, most of the clips between him and his friends either at school or Morgan and Nathan at the tower. Nothing truly concerning, just a couple of teenagers having fun. Though looking at it did make him feel like he was invading Damian’s privacy in a weird way. He knew for sure that his mother never had access to his personal life like this.

He knew that he shouldn’t bring it up to Steve. But then Steve came home. And he brought it up to Steve.

“Does he know?” was the first thing Steve asked. Followed by, “But wait, he doesn’t know. Should we tell him?”

“I dunno. I haven’t thought too much about when we’d tell ‘em.”

“I was thinking twelve for the longest time, but then his twelfth birthday went by and I decided he was better off waiting.”

“Which was probably for the best. I was thinking, perhaps his next birthday?”

“At fourteen?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s way too early. We still have to remind him to clean his room.”

“What, you think that’s gonna change in the next fifteen years?”

“No, but he should be an adult. Eighteen. That way if he wants to do something about, it he can do it on his own.”

“What’s he gonna do?”

“I dunno, find Bucky. People know he’s alive, but not where he’s living. If he wants to take a flight to Wakanda or something. He doesn’t need our help for that.”

Sam sighed. “I mean, I have no better ideas.”

“We can decide on it later. I mean, does he really need to know?”

“Yes.”

Steve leaned back in his seat, “He already knows he’s adopted. I would think that’s a bigger issue.”

“Do you really?”

“No. But I wish it was.”

They didn’t have much on Damian’s origins. His caretaker had, eventually, been tried in court for what she did, but Damian was not there for the trial and his name had been protected by both the law and help from Shield. So Sam collected the write-up of that trial and put it in a file with the notes Shield collected from Damian’s intake. Otherwise that was it. Damian’s origins were fairly straightforward and not much else to be said on it. Sam tried to live his life and not think too hard on it.

[Anthony] Do you know where your son is?

Sam probably shouldn’t rise to the bait, but it was a Thursday night before a long weekend and he was kind of curious what got Tony so angry all of the sudden.

[Self] Why?

[Anthony] Cap doesn’t.  
[Anthony] -Twitch link-

Sam reluctantly opened the link to see a video streaming. Nathan was there, along with Morgan and Damian. Nathan was holding a pot on a very long pole. The pot hanging just a foot over a carved out watermelon with water in it.

“Hurry and dump it before my dad finds us!” Morgan yelled.

Sam could not immediately identify what was in the pot. But when it was dumped into the water filled watermelon the entire thing immediately exploded like a landmine, causing the three knuckleheads to scream and shout.

[Anthony] I know she’s out there I just don’t know where.

[Self] Probably the park.

[Anthony] Which one?

[Self] I don’t know. There’s a few in the area.

There was more to the story than just that, but Sam didn’t bother worrying about it. If Tony was so worried about his kid blowing up watermelons, then he could do the legwork. He finished up his work day at ten when the last of the people left and headed back home.

Where things were not settled. He’d barely managed to change into his home clothes, which consisted of a mustard stained shirt and sweats, when Steve opened the door. He looked tired, probably not from lack of sleep, but more because of the very angry Tony following him in.

“We looked at all of the parks Wilson, didn’t find any of them!” Tony yelled. “You got any ideas?”

There were a lot of methods to dealing with someone so pissed they could chew glass. One was just being the calm one to their crazy.

“We found the one where they blew up the watermelon, but they were long gone,” Steve filled in. And that was a funny thing to imagine, an Avenger and an ex-Avenger at some random woodland park examining a blown up watermelon.

“They stopped streaming?”

“Obviously,” Tony said.

“Don’t you have Morgan’s phone bugged?”

“She cracked it.” That sounded like it was said with gritted teeth.

“Well then I don’t know.”

“Did Damian come back for dinner?” Steve asked.

“No.”

“Then he’s probably eating something.”

“Does he have a card?” Tony asked.

“Just a debit that we -”

“Well check the purchases!”

“You know she’s probably fine,” Steve said. But he did pull out his phone to appease the man.

“There’s probably hundreds of people out to get her. If she’s fine it’s not for long!”

“Why didn’t you ask Clint about Nate?” Sam asked.

“Because he’s even more of a hippy than you two. Never knows where his children are.”

If Sam didn’t know any better he’d assume that Morgan was just an hour away from death itself. Thankfully he did know better in both Morgan’s future and handling Tony. He said nothing as Steve checked the card Damian was allowed access to. Sam knew that most of the purchases were food. There were many discussions on what kind of food he was allowed to buy and how much he was allowed to spend. Most of the transactions were convenience stores and fast food near the parks.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Did Morgan use hers?” Sam asked.

“She took cash out of an ATM in New York.” Tony said. “Goddammit. What’s near here?”

There were several universities in the area, and thus several cheap restaurants they went to. Damian often hit up some for take-out if he wasn’t going to be home for dinner. Normally his choices weren’t so healthy, but that was to be expected of a teenager. And, honestly, the more carbs Damian ate the less likely they’d have problems.

“They’re probably at Wiseguy,” he said, getting the attention of the two men.

“Why there?” Steve asked.

“Call it a spidy tingle.”

“Whatever, good enough for me. Let’s go Rogers.”

Sam would have let the two go on their own if Steve didn’t shoot him a pleading look. One silent conversation later, and Sam was in the back of the awkwardly silent car as they pulled out onto the street.

“So, why are we chasing your daughter around DC?” Sam asked.

“Because she ran away.”

“But you know who she’s with.”

“Yeah, and she’s not supposed to be with them.” Tony snapped.

It didn’t make much sense, Morgan spent many weekends with Nate and Damian. Why this one was different was beyond Sam, but he stopped with the questions. Tony had his way of parenting and Sam had his.

Wiseguy was busy as always, but Damian’s faded, green hair gave the group away. They were sitting in the corner, with a large pizza for the three of them to share. Honestly Sam would have gladly let them have their fun, but Tony was on the warpath. Just him parting through the crowd caught the group’s attention. Morgan stood from her seat and the two spoke in angry, hushed tones very quickly before Tony dragged her out of the room.

Sam felt a little bad for her. As silly as her choices were, she was just trying to have fun. If Tony was a little less strict then she likely would’ve told him exactly where she was and he wouldn’t have to worry. It’s not like she was hanging out with bad kids.

“You two know that Tony was looking for her?” he asked. Nate slouched in his seat, while Damian shrugged. “She say anything?”

“Not to us,” Nate said. “Is she in trouble?”

“Probably,” Steve said. “Damian be home by eleven okay? Try to stay out of trouble.”

Tony left with his very angry child. He and Steve left soon afterwards to let the boys enjoy the rest of their evening.

The chase around town was annoying, but it didn’t stop him and Steve from enjoying an empty house for the next few hours before falling asleep.

In the morning Sam turned on the family-friendly cooking channel and made coffee while Steve made a box of pancakes with bacon. It was a normal Saturday morning, so Damian only came out of his room once the food was ready like normal.

“I guess she got in trouble for replacing Friday with her own A.I.” Damian said, likely relaying what Morgan texted him the night before. “I knew she was working on one, but I didn’t know she got in trouble for it.”

“That’s interesting.” More like concerning. But Sam knew better than to outright say that to his son for it to be repeated.

“He’s raising a mini-Tony,” Steve said. Sam attempted to kick him but only clipped the sweats he was wearing.

“I guess… But if he didn’t want her to do it then why’d he teach her?”

“He was probably more angry that she used it to disobey him,” he said. If he was forced to experience the chase then he would also use it as a teaching opportunity. “Don’t let me catch you doing that.”

Saturdays were often slow. If no one needed either of them then they could spend a full forty-eight hours ago home, barring the typical weekend chores like grocery shopping. Sam liked to spend his weekends lazing around the house in sweats. Steve typically had DIY projects and Damian always had a friend to see or games to play. If a weekend went particularly well, then it almost felt like Sam was a twenty year old barely responsible enough to keep himself alive.

That weekend, however, he and Steve had a date. Like many parents a formal date was something they rarely made time for. Every once in a while they would remember that it’d been a while since they’d had a night alone and sometimes take advantage of Damian’s social life to have a nice night out. Planning a night out was rare. So rare Sam almost forgot about it, mostly drowning himself in a drama on his tablet until Steve came into the master bedroom for a shower.

“Aren’t we still going to dinner?” he asked. “Or are you too tired?”

Too tired? For Rasika? Never. Especially not when his husband was treating, using funds from their joint bank account sure, but it would be the card with his name on the table and not Sam’s. He found an unstained shirt and finally lotioned his ashy legs. Steve came out of the bathroom looking so handsome Sam set a notice in his phone to remind him an hour later to keep his hands to himself. Because otherwise he’d forget and make a fool of himself before they even got to the naan.

Sam came out of the bedroom to see Steve grilling Damian, who seemed to only be paying attention because Steve had stolen the controller he was using.

“And you have our number in your phone right?” he asked.

“Yes Dad,” Damian muttered.

“And you’ll lock the door when you leave? And when you come back.”

“Mhm.”

“And you promise you’ll be back by eight.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Steve handed back the controller.

“Have fun playing your Zeldas,” Sam said. Damian let out a small ‘ugh’ before unpausing Final Fantasy XX and getting back to the highly convoluted story.

He and Steve weren’t the only people out on a date that evening. It seemed half of D.C decided they wanted a nice night out. The restaurant couldn’t even seat their reservation right away; the people who’d been sitting at that table had been there for three hours doing god knew what. So he and Steve waited twenty minutes at the bar until they were shown to their table. It was in the corner, mostly away from people. Romantic, private, with a basket of free bread already waiting for them.

“I really want the sweet potato curry,” Steve said. Sam sat right next to Steve, crammed up next to the man so he had space to stretch his legs under the table. He’d been thrown into a brick wall just a few days ago he deserved to be freed of decision making while enjoying alcohol and Thai tea. “What do you want?”

“I’m fine with just the lamb.” Just the lamb, along with the myriad of other dishes Steve would inevitably order. And yet no matter what they brought home it rarely lasted a day in the fridge.

“How’s your back feeling?” Steve asked.

“It feels fine.” Trying to nip Steve’s mothering in the bud was not how he wanted their evening to start. It made getting to the sexy stuff later in the night that much more difficult.

“You were in the room all day today.”

“Not because of my back. Because I was tired.” He reached for more bread. “Let’s not talk about my crippling injuries. Find something else to talk about.”

“Our last real date was six months ago, I don’t know what married couples talk about anymore. Maybe the weather?”

“It’s gonna be hot tomorrow because of global warming.”

“That’s your idea of date talk? Our impending demise?”

“Damian’s impending demise. We’re gonna be dead by the time all of this happens.”

“Lovely. I’m glad our son is inheriting a broken world. Maybe we should buy him that cat he wants since it’ll be the last piece of joy he’ll have before the world devolves into chaos.”

“Be my guest.”

“You said you didn’t want a cat.”

“No, I said I didn’t want to clean up after a cat. Cats by themselves are fine.”

“Fine, we’ll get a big one. But if I see you petting it it’s a third yours.”

“Which’ll mean it’s half mine since your son can’t clean worth a damn.”

“He’s only my son when you’re annoyed with him.”

“Yeah, it’s what you agreed to with our vows.”

“I did not.”

“It was implied.”

They continued their affectionate argument, even after the food came. There were subjects they both could poke and scratch at and neither of them would feel hurt. Other subjects they avoided. Cats and their messy son were just normal family things; stuff they’d been joking about and debating for years since Damian entered what Sam liked to call pre-adulthood. A time in any kids life where they had to go through all of the bumps and mistakes while learning all the minimum skills required of an adult. Modern adulthood, which had to be specified because Steve had tried to teach the poor kid how to balance a checkbook.

Once they were done the leftovers got packaged up while Steve settled the bill. They put the leftovers in the back so they could perfume Steve’s car with the smell of curry. They had planned on a movie as well, a comedy starring a roundtable of comedians Steve listened to on a podcast. It was funny, pretty raunchy with jokes that he definitely felt like a dirty old man for laughing at.

About halfway through a joke about women looking up the lead man’s skirt, Sam’s phone rang. He was always bad about turning his phone off in general because just about any life threatening disaster could come up. He quickly excused himself and took the call out in the lobby.

“Hello, I’d like to speak with Mr. Wilson,” a woman on the other end said.

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Wilson, I’m calling from the DC Metropolitan Police Department. A Damian Rogers is currently in here; we need you to pick him up.”

His stomach dropped. “He’s in trouble?”

“No one’s pressing charges,” she said. “Since he’s a minor, we need a guardian to pick him up.”

“Alright I can be there within an hour or so.”

“Have a nice night sir.” An ironic sign off considering the fact that the woman was detaining his son. She hung up the phone with a click. Sam went back into the theater while the crowd was flooding the room with laughter. He managed to get Steve’s attention and speak just loud enough to be heard over the crowd.

“We gotta go to the police department,” he said. Steve’s frown was visible from the light of the screen.

“Why?”

“Damian’s in trouble.”

The frown deepened. Steve followed him out of the theater into the lobby. “What’s he in trouble for?”

“I dunno. She said no one’s pressing charges, whatever that means.”

“So no one attacked him?”

“From the sounds of it it’s more likely he attacked someone else.”

“That’s not like him.”

“I know. Something’s up.”

He probably shouldn’t have said it like that. Steve was like an angry bull in a china shop. If left to his own devices he’d get to the center of the mystery by prying it out of Damian. He’d make home life so uncomfortable that Damian would just give Steve what he wanted, and when a problem like this came up again he’d probably do something stupid to try and get out of dealing with Steve again. If they didn’t handle this right then there was a good chance that they might start a nasty cycle of Damian trying to hide things when he was in trouble.

Steve slowly worked himself into a frenzy on the drive to the station. Enough so that Sam knew that he should prevent Steve from talking if at all possible. Thankfully when they went in Damian wasn’t waiting in a cell, they had stashed him in a room and had to bring him out while Steve signed some documents. Damian dragged his feet, his eyes kept darting to the floor. Sam would bet money if Damian had cried recently, though he’d managed to scrub away most of the evidence.

“You okay Day?” he asked, before anyone else could get a word in.

“I’m fine,” Damian said forcefully. He crossed his arms, his jaw clenched.

“Okay, why don’t you wait in the car while we wrap this up?” he said gently. “Door’s open.”

Damian followed orders, so the first ten minutes went smoothly. But even Sam couldn’t stop Steve for long. Once they got on the road the questions started. And Sam watched as Damian shrunk in on himself.

“The report said you were fighting, Damian!” Steve practically yelled. “Why were you fighting?”

“No reason.”

“So you just pick fights for no reason?” 

“No!”

“Then why were you fighting?”

“I dunno.”

“Damian-!”

“Steve,” Sam interrupted. “Why don’t we wait until tomorrow morning to have this discussion?”

Steve sighed. “Fine.”

Damian went to his room and closed the door. Steve did the same. Sam mourned his night, but he signed up for this. He knew what children were like. And if he didn’t have another opportunity for sex within the next week, then they probably had bigger problems than an unruly child.

He set an alarm and got a decent night’s rest. When the alarm went off in the morning he quickly turned it off and got dressed before Steve woke up. He walked down the stairs and knocked on Damian’s door. When there was no response he slowly turned the knob and opened the door. Inside the room Damian was under the covers obviously playing games on his phone.

“Yes?” he said, without coming out from the covers.

“You wanna get some breakfast?”

“Why?”

“Because I want a nice breakfast. And I’m sure you do too because I know you didn’t get a snack in the last ten hours.”

Damian paused. “Fine.”

It took Damian five minutes to get ready, and Sam was not going to ask him if he actually put on clean undergarments, because this was not the day for that joke. There were several diners nearby, and most of them were good. So they walked to the closest greasy spoon that served the trifecta of heart disease: milkshakes, burgers, and fries. Along with all the standard breakfast food.

“You want a milkshake?” he asked as they both perused the menu.

“No thanks.”

“Well, I’m going to get a strawberry milkshake.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Okay… Can I get Oreo?”

Sam made sure to balance out his shake by getting a side salad with his burger. Damian got a stack of waffles with strawberry sauce, chocolate fudge, caramel, and whipped cream. Sam definitely did not feel jealous of Damian’s youth and metabolism. No sir.

He kept the conversation light until Damian was halfway done with his waffles.

“So, I feel like we should talk about last night.”

Damian clearly shrunk in his seat. “...Okay.”

“It’s not like you to pick fights. What happened? You know you can tell us if you’re in trouble.”

Damian crossed his arms and slid further down into his seat. He didn’t immediately respond. Sam stayed silent to encourage Damian to say something.

“I-uhm…” Damian stuttered, “Y-yesterday I went with Joe and Tran to skateboard right? And, like, these girls - this other group - came by. They’re - like - from school, but I don’t really know them,” Damian’s face heated up, just a tad, “They did their thing for a while and then, uhm, one talked to me. And she wanted to go behind the building and kiss. So I did. But then I found out one of her friends was recording it and I just… I got really angry and I broke his phone…”

Damian went silent.

“And then you got in a fight?”

“Yeah.” He looked down at the plate to avoid Sam’s gaze.

That was a lot to unpack. “... Well. I can certainly understand how the fight started. Can’t say I wouldn’t do the same.”

“I didn’t hit first.”

“Well that’s good. You should never hit first. What was this boy’s name?”

“I don’t wanna say.”

“Okay. But if he causes more trouble at school I’m gonna have to step in.”

“He’s just dumb.”

“Yeah he is. Thank you for telling me, you’re not in trouble. Just try to stay out of fights. You feel better?”

“I guess.”

Well, their little chat probably helped with the anxiety of getting caught. But even Sam wouldn’t walk away unscathed from having his trust betrayed like that. Though he did have enough life experience to not try and break a phone.

Steve was a bit less impressed with the news. Sam tried to bring a club sandwich to calm the man, but even a face worth of bacon and chicken couldn’t make him feel as sympathetic towards Damian's actions as Sam would’ve liked.

“He shouldn’t be breaking other kids phones,” Steve said. “He should be punished for that.”

“Would you do anything different? I seem to recall the museum extolling your headstrong personality and willingness to stand up to bullies.”

“That was different -”

“How different? You’re both standing up for yourselves against a bully. Look, it was his first time getting into that kind of trouble and I spoke to him. If it happens again, then we’ll reassess. But if you’ve got problems with the way he handled it, then you’ve got to have a talk with him. Unlike most parents, your past is public knowledge; what you do now is public knowledge. He’s going to take cues from it.”

Steve sighed. “He’s not going to understand.”

“Yes he will. It’s a thing in one of his games.”

“What?”

“The one we got him last Christmas. The Viking one.”

“How do you know that?”

“I watched the cutscenes online to make sure there wasn’t any nudity,” he said quickly, “But it’s a thing in the game. The dad was a jerk, he killed and raped because he was better than humans, but then he settled down with a human and he doesn’t want his son to know about it even though it’s better for the son. So he’ll understand, just reference that.”

“I didn’t kill and rape people though.”

“He’ll get it!”


	6. Six

Sam had gone to buy soup at the corner store, leaving Damian for all of thirty minutes before getting the call to come back. A shock, really. When he’d had his done it had taken at least an hour just to get two out, and he had to come back the next week for the other set.

He walked back to the office to see that yes, there was Damian. Unusually chubby cheeked, mouth stuffed with gauze and showing every physical sign of a boy loaded up with drugs. His son went to say something, but it was muffled from the bandaging.

“We had to use a lot,” the assistant said. “But we think it’ll wear off after an hour or so.”

The assistant helped Damian get to his feet, because he was still so light that a five foot nurse could get him up and standing without struggling. But once he was on his feet he immediately leaned into Sam and began to cry big, fat tears.

“This is normal,” the assistant said.

“Yeah, I know.” Sam patted Damian on the back and wondered how Steve was doing.

If Steve was available to be asked, he would probably say that he was no better than Sam at this moment. Because while Damian was busy getting his teeth yanked out Bucky was in a similar process. But unlike Damian, Bucky had years of trauma that made him react rather negatively to surgery. So Steve was in Africa, despite protests from Bucky, because he cared about his flighty friend/fuck buddy.

But the procedure had gone as quickly and painlessly as expected, and the woman helped Bucky out much like the assistant did. The difference being that Steve merely had to help Bucky up to his room rather than get him to a car. They were similarly distracted, however, when Bucky burst into tears on the elevator ride up.

“Alright Buck, it’s okay. It’s just the drugs.”

Bucky mumbled into his shirt, a response that could literally mean anything, but probably meant nothing, given the amount of drugs they had to pump into the poor man just to numb his face.

Steve wrapped an arm around Bucky’s torso and hauled him into his apartment. A moderately sized home with one bedroom, a bathroom, and a small living room with an overstuffed bookcase and stacks of movies in front of the T.V.. The bed was messy with brown sheets, but Bucky fell asleep in it just fine.

Though it wasn’t for long. The freezer was full of chicken and beef broth so Steve put a big, brown block in a hot pot with some really soft vegetables until everything was kind of mushy. By the time everything was ready Bucky had slept off the initial drugs and instead was guzzling the pills like they were candy.

“How’s it feel, missing a quarter of your mouth?” Steve teased.

“It’s not a quarter,” Bucky managed to say around the cotton in his mouth. He reached in and tenderly pulled the patches out of his mouth. “Thanks for coming by the way.”

“Don’t thank me like there was a chance I wouldn’t come. I know how you are.” He set down the bowl of boiled vegetable parts in front of Bucky, who looked a little queasy but still managed to eat with gusto.

“What’s the family doing without you?”

Steve shrugged, “Damian’s getting his wisdom teeth out too.”

Bucky snorted. “Really?”

“Yeah. We figured he was better off doing it now rather than later.”

“Why?”

“Because the dentist suggested it.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Well… Look we didn’t want him getting them yanked out at forty because he let them get infected.”

“I didn’t let them get infected,” Bucky said defensively. “Sometimes things just get infected. You of all people should know.”

“Yeah, well, germ theory was still new.”

Their back and forth was nice. If anything it proved that Bucky was just fine after that incredibly quick surgery and didn’t really need Steve around to take care of him. Well, perhaps he did given the fact that he hadn’t prepped anything beforehand. He went back to sleep after the soup and Steve did a little bit more looking around to find a crate of those high-caloric shakes similar to Damian’s, and like those they were clearly avoided at all cost. Understandable. Bucky had lived on an all liquid diet for decades. But unlike other coincidences Steve doubted this was genetic and assumed that it was more because the drinks didn’t taste good. He remembered being on weird medication, big pills that tasted of chalk; truly the worst part of being ill.

Bucky’s movie collection was respectable. Steve entertained himself with some random action movie until Bucky woke up after dark. Like before he took a mouthful of pills and a mouthful of water and swallowed them both down. He poked gingerly at his swollen jaw like that would actually help. Steve should probably tell him to stop, but then his phone beeped and he decided that was more important.

[<3] Guess what your son is wearing.

[Self] I’m scared.  
[Self] Just tell me.

[<3] /image/

Steve would have to print this picture out and frame it. He didn’t know the story behind it, maybe Damian got blood on his shirt or something, but instead of his baggy t-shirts Damian was wearing a Captain America shirt that was probably from deep in Steve’s closet. It hung as loosely as any other shirt Damian wore, and he was dead asleep on the couch, but Steve remembered when Damian swore off the merch entirely when he realized what exactly he was wearing. So his heart did jump when he saw it.

“I’m pretty sure humiliating an injured kid is a war crime,” Bucky said, unashamedly looking over Steve’s shoulder.

“Only if it’s public and degrading.”

“Does this not count?”

“There’s nothing degrading about a T-shirt.” Steve closed his phone, “Did you burn your Christmas present?”

“Torched it, along with the Falcon underwear.” Bucky went back into the kitchen to reheat some food.

It really was a testament to Bucky’s recovery that he managed to get through surgery and be only a bit sarcastic while recovering. Hell, even back in the thirties Bucky was very pissy when a small cut got infected and he had to stay home until his hand stopped swelling.

“I’m amazed he’s not posting about it.” Bucky said.

“Who?”

“Damian.”

“Posting what?”

“Those little video things the kids post.”

“What, like online?”

“Yeah.”

Steve shrugged. “He’s probably asleep now or something. Why do you even know about this stuff anyway?”

“Because I follow him.”

“Why?”

“Why not? He’s funny.”

“Yeah, but you won’t even talk to him.”

Bucky sighed. “So? It’s not like I was tomcattin’ around and dropped him on your doorstep. Why do I have to talk to him?”

“Because, I dunno, closure? Because it’d be easier on me, even you? Do you like hiding out in Africa pretending that he doesn’t exist?”

“I obviously don’t pretend he doesn’t exist. But it’s a little late for the reveal now isn’t it? What am I supposed to tell him? Sorry kid, didn’t feel like being around until now. He’s basically an adult.”

“He’s sixteen; still a far cry from an adult.”

“Whatever. He’s not even going to the military or being an Avenger or anything. He’s just a normal kid, and he’s better off that way.”

“How do you know he’s not going to be an Avenger?”

“I assume there’s a weight requirement.” Bucky sighed in defeat, similar to how Steve felt. This was an old argument, and all it did was make them feel tired.

He was fighting a battle that, honestly, no one had asked him to fight. Damian hadn’t asked about his “real” parents in recent memory. The fact that he was adopted didn’t bother him, and they knew all the diseases he was at risk for. But, God, sometimes it hurt how suddenly Damian could do something that reminded him of Bucky. Not even this Bucky, the Bucky after the war, but the Bucky Steve had known during the Depression. Even his voice could spark nostalgia on occasion. A lot went into a voice and Bucky clearly had been raised in the dirt of the '30s, but sometimes Damian said something and Steve didn’t even need to close his eyes to see the slums of Brooklyn.

Steve wasn’t needed for long. He spent just another day to make sure Bucky wasn’t going to tear anything out after he left. They’d probably see each other again, at some random high profile event in DC probably, and have this whole argument all over again, but after sex. He arrived home early on Monday, surprised to find Damian still home, laying on the couch.

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” shouldn’t have been the first thing he said when he arrived, but it’s not like someone went off to war.

“He tore his stitches,” Sam said, before Damian could even open his mouth. “So I had to take him back.”

At second glance it was pretty clear that this was correct. Damian was red eyed like he had been crying and he didn’t seem to be watching the T.V. so much as he was staring blankly at the moving images on the screen. After twenty-four hours he was much more aware of where he was and what he was doing, and thus aware enough to complain.

“But I don’t wannaaaa,” he whined. “Dad please, I’m injured.”

“Just take your medicine,” Steve said. “All of it.”

“Dad.” Damian wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist. “Please kill me. I don’t think I can make it through the day.”

“I can give you a ride.”

That seemed to be the trick to get Damian moving. He came back out of his room with the dress shirt and slacks that were part of the school’s uniform and he consumed soggy cereal without fuss. The drive to the school was mostly quiet as Damian tried to finish up some homework he neglected to do, which was probably the real reason he didn’t want to go to school.

Damian’s school was fairly average in size, filled with the same kids he’d grown up with. It was honestly kind of boring, but there were a few things he enjoyed about it.

Most of them were soccer. Which he was missing since he had to take up a temporary side-hobby as pill swallower.

“Are you supposed to take so many of those?” Joe asked at lunch. “You gonna turn into some druggy?”

“Shut up.” He pushed Joe’s shoulder as Tran and Leon joined them on the grass under the tree.

“Your face looks like a cotton ball,” Tran joked. Smacking her own cheeks for emphasis.

“Haven’t you heard? It’s the new in look.”

“And you pull it off splendidly.”

“You look like a balloon on a stick.” Leon said. If Damian weren’t a few grams away from high as hell he’d have something to say to that, but he was basically high and so he didn’t. Damian watched Leon rejoin his douchebag friends.

Since he didn’t exactly have soccer practice, he was free to leave after school. But Nathan would be around in about an hour and Morgan promised to make it down no matter what. So he didn’t immediately head home. Instead he sat on the sidelines and tried to get homework done so he wouldn’t have to worry about it in the middle of the night, like he always did. The team wasn’t doing anything important, they were too deep into winter for an actual game, so mostly they were waiting for spring to roll around. Most of the guys treated it that way even as their coach shouted at them to run faster or stay focused. It might be a lost cause; most of the guys had other things on their mind.

About halfway through practice, Damian needed to refill his water bottle so he could consume more drugs throughout the evening, so he headed into the locker room to refill at the fountain. Which Leon decided was a prompt to join him.

“Don’t you have to be out at practice?” he tried to say forcefully, but Damian didn’t have as much control over how he wanted to say things when he was drugged. As evidenced by the day before. So instead it sounded more like a suggestion.

“But I always take forever in here,” Leon said against Damian’s puffy jaw. Hands snaked under Damian’s shirt, pulling him closer. Leon wasn’t taller than him, but he was bigger and liked to feel bigger. So he grabbed what he wanted to grab and pushed when he wanted to push. If Damian wanted to, he could do the same.

He was pushed, none too gently, against a locker like he wasn’t just two days out from oral surgery. Like this was any other day.

“Careful,” he warned.

“I’m always careful,” Leon lied.

Leon kissed just like any other day: aggressive and possessive. Holding Damian in place by his waist and shoving his tongue inside. It was about as pleasant as the day before and ended just the same. With Damian’s jaw open just a little too wide and a sudden, sharp pain filling his mouth.

“Ow! Fuck!” Leon yelled, after one swift headbutt connected with his nose and sent him tumbling. Damian wanted to share the sentiment, but he was too busy cradling his now bloody jaw to really yell anything. Leon’s hands immediately went to his nose to check for damages as Damian went to spit up blood in the sink.

“You better not be fighting in there!” Coach yelled from down the hallway. The threat of him coming down was clear and certainly killed whatever mood Leon was going for.

“We’re fine!” Leon yelled. “It’s just - … we’re fine!”

“Good!”

After a long moment Damian was sure Coach had left, so he felt fairly safe in saying a quick. “Fuck you,” to Leon in-between mouthfuls of water.

“Whatever,” Leon grumbled. His nose looked a bit sore, it might even bruise, but like every injury they gave one another he would probably lie and say it was from practice or something.

Practice resumed despite the little hiccup. Damian returned to his homework for another half an hour, trying to plow through the last of his math assignments so he didn’t end up staying up late to do them.

[The Dumpster Fire Trios <3<3<3 *fire emoji*]

[Mor] Guess who’s downtown?  
[Mor] Me, it’s me.

[Nate] I’m omw, just stopped to pick up taco bell  
[Nate] Y'all want something?

[Self] Slushies  
[Self] Five bucks worth

[Mor] Chalupas  
[Mor] And sprite

Downtown meant at the park. Not too far from Damian’s school and therefore not to far from the Taco Bell Nate usually got food from. Still he had to race in order to make it out there in time. Morgan was already sitting on a bench messing with her phone when he arrived.

“How’re the teeth?” she asked.

“Could be better,” he said. The painkillers had kicked in, but he did hope that Leon hadn’t done anything permanent.

“You look fine,” she said dismissively. Then both of them caught sight of Nate’s van and immediately the conversation turned. “Chalupas!”

“CHALUPAS” Nate yelled from his car, holding the bags up like they were a treasure. The following consumption of said Taco Bell could only be described as disgusting and not fit for description under current decency laws.

After that it was all about finding a place they could start a fire without getting arrested, which happened to be by the creek. It was a bad spot, mostly because getting decent lighting was difficult and really they should’ve just waited to do it on the weekend, but there were good odds that none of them would have the time that weekend.

They didn’t always get a lot of views, but it was fun. And Nate wanted to go into filmmaking, so it helped for him to have a robust portfolio for college and all of that. None of them were actors or even acted remotely normal when in front of the camera. Sometimes he looked at responses, and other times he didn't. They did whatever came to mind, so for the past month they’d had a strange fascination with mysteries.

“Her mother offered to come shopping with her, but Dorothy declined.” Morgan said. “Apparently she said ‘when I find the dress I want I will telephone you.’”

“She sounds like an heiress.” Damian said. “I want that life.”

“It’s overrated.”

Sometimes one of them ended up in the newspaper or a clip went viral. But the lives of the Avenger’s kids wasn’t as exciting as most expected. No one realized Nate was Hawkeye’s kid even though he looked exactly like him. Damian went to school with kids of politicians and CEO’s, while Morgan was the only one who occasionally got hounded by paparazzi, she also didn’t go to an actual school where she blended in.

“Hey, a couple of my friends and I are gonna head off the Canada over spring break,” Nate said, as they tried to furiously clean up and head home at a decent hour. “You two wanna come?”

“Why Canada?” Morgan said. “What’s happening there?”

“Drinking mostly. We’re going to Ottawa. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” He shrugged.

“I’m coming,” Morgan said, and she meant it. No matter what obstacle her father put in front of her she tended to get around it either with or without the help of her mother.

Damian shrugged. “I’ll see.”

His parents would probably let him go if only because he was going with Nate, but they might have reservations about out of country anything. And they probably would twig to the fact that half of Nate’s friends wanted to drink. So, if he wanted to go, he’d have to spring it early so he had enough time to convince them that it was a good idea.

But it was October, and he had until April to figure it out. So he tried to give his parents no reason to suspect he’d be stupid while away. He let his mouth heal over the next day and even tried not to give Leon too much shit, even when Leon deserved it. All this meant that when his birthday drew near he had better sway.

That year his birthday was on a Wednesday, so he celebrated it on the weekend before. So that Friday he headed to his locker after classes intent on leaving his homework inside and not worry about it until ten minutes before first period on Monday. Homework did not exist when one aged at least that’s what he told himself as he tried to shove his books in his locker. He only realized there was something else stuck in there. A box with no name on it. He removed the box and shoved his advanced Chinese textbook in the spot where the box had been.

It was a box he was unfamiliar with; he certainly hadn’t put it in his locker. Black and a little suspicious, but he peeled off the tape and opened it anyway. Inside there was a very long knife with a multicolored handle. Poking at the tip caused his finger to bleed it was that sharp.

Technically the blade was too long for D.C, but he took it and shoved it in his pocket anyway because it was cool and he would have to remember to thank his friends later.

Morgan’s birthday was around Halloween, and his was two weeks later. So they always ended up having a party at the Tower in New York, which often was one of only two times he got a chance to be in the tower. The flight up to New York was planned, but Damian’s packing was not.

“Damian you’re going to be around adults, can you please pack something that actually fits?” his dad said after his frustrated-sigh. The man was filling up his doorway as Damian tried to shove every item he might ever need for a weekend in New York.

“It’s my birthday I get to dress as I want!” he said as he tried to find a spot for his Switch.2.

“Damian you’re not a medium.”

“Neither are you!” he retorted. It seemed like every few months there was some new punny hashtag about Captain America’s ass. Somehow that mere fact was enough to make him consider deleting his Twitter account.

His dad let out his frustrated-sigh. “At least do something with your hair.”

Do something with your hair meant tie it back so I don’t have to look at it. Which, whatever, his dad had never liked his hair anyways. So all of his orange went into a ponytail and he climbed into the back of his dad’s Toyota, then got out at the airport. He entertained himself with games on the flight itself, and immediately scouted out Morgan when they arrived at the Tower.

Their joined parties were never really birthday parties, and instead their birthdays were rolled in with the holidays and PR. Damian certainly never opened a present on them because his parents insisted that presents were for his actual birthday, and Morgan was far too rich to ever really get presents. Instead she got what she liked to call “opportunities.” Basically her dad was more lenient and she could convince him to let her do something he might not have approved of before. Like the year before when she finally got to attend a concert with him and Nate.

“They set up the burrito tower,” she said, dragging him to the room with said tower of burritos. It seemed excessive, having several tiers made of burritos that were cut in half so people knew the filling. But by what Damian could tell this entire tower could probably feed two and a half Avengers. Maybe three, if the third was Wanda. There was also a table of sushi upon Morgan’s request and the chefs were busy downstairs cooking up more expensive fairs.

“It’s not Taco Bell though,” he said.

“Yeah,” Morgan said, a bit disappointed. “Dad’s a snob. He demands guacamole.”

Guacamole, which went great with the deep fried sushi roll once he put the two together. During this effort Nate arrived and he managed to convince a chef to deep fry his burrito, which was ingenious. Meanwhile Morgan put down a layer of California rolls on her plate and put the burrito fillings on top.

“I forgot you three were four,” Wanda commented with a smile. She smartly came in for food before others could. Not only could some members wipe out the best stuff, but they would have Shield around and some reporters and important people. Really the fact that they could pick food was the only thing that made it so that their birthdays were acknowledged. Maybe at twenty-one they could pick the alcohol too.

People trickled in and an hour in Damian hid upstairs, playing Smash with Morgan and Nate. They took turns rushing down for food, Nate even snatching himself a beer that he let them try. It tasted terrible, but Morgan was determined to say it was good even as she grimaced.

“You just gotta get used to the bitterness,” she said. “That’s what makes a good beer.”

Nate snorted. “No it’s not you sweet summer child.”

Morgan’s response was to throw a pillow at him and then try to wrestle, which went poorly for her. Nate was never going to walk in his father’s footsteps, but he did hit the gym. And poor Morgan was a nerd.

When the sun fell they headed back downstairs to see that people were still schmoozing and talking, this time mostly drunk. Nate’s sister, Lila, was already a little tipsy, but was still winning at pool. Drunk science was being discussed in the Science Den of Science. The reporter no one liked was talking about politics. Same old, same old.

He took the elevator up, and up until he was near the top. He had access to the upper levels, but the storage room on the north end he needed to request permission.

“Mr. Stark would like to know the reason you need access to this room,” Friday stated. Tony was probably watching him as she spoke.

“Tell him that it’ll be funny. I just need my dad’s shield.”

A pause.

“Access granted.”

The shield was in the bag his dad had brought along with his father’s wings. So he just pulled it out of the bag and took the elevator back down. When he found his parents, who were on one of the upper floor terraces probably trying to be alone, he also found Tony. The trio were talking about baseball even though none of them really wanted to be. Mr. Stark probably had never seen a baseball game and his father had his therapist face on so he was just being polite and neutral.

“Tony, why does Damian have my shield?” his dad asked.

“He asked for it.” Mr. Stark leaned back against the railing of the terrace. “Said it’d be funny.”

“Damian put it back.”

“No, I wanna challenge you for something!”

His dad gave an annoyed-sigh. “What?”

“Nate invited me to go to Canada with him and his friends and I wanna go.”

“This is what you wanted the shield for!” Mr. Stark yelled. “This isn’t funny!”

“Tony please.” His dad crossed his arms. “How does the shield factor into this?”

“We’ll play keep away as our challenge.”

“Uh huh, and for how long?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Why do I have to take the shield from you, shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“Because then it’s not egalitarian! I can’t overpower you, but I can be faster and smarter.”

“I take it back I’m loving this,” Mr. Stark said, just as his father guffawed.

“Oh, you think you’re faster and smarter than me?” his dad said. “Fine, but I want twenty minutes. And we stay off the first five floors since there are people there.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll give you till the count of ten.”

Damian didn’t wait for his dad to even start counting, he pivoted and ran back into the building towards the stairs racing down several floors before bursting through the door so his dad didn’t know the exact floor he was on. He raced down the hall, past rooms and rooms before ducking into an empty meeting room.

“Damian.” Friday rang through the halls. “Per protocol I must inform you that Mr. Rogers has requested your location.”

“Fucking cheater!” He didn’t exactly say they couldn’t use Friday, but he thought that was a silent agreement. Whatever, Damian ran for the elevators and called the one not actively moving to take him down.

“Damian, Mr. Rogers has requested that I stop this elevator,” Friday said, when the elevator hit the eighteenth floor. It immediately stopped.

“Goddammit!” He thought he had this one! This wasn’t fair. “Open the door!”

Friday opened the door and Damian raced out back towards the stairs where he could hear his dad’s much slower footsteps from way up higher.

Damian popped out of the fifteenth floor and raced down the hallway. There were people up on this floor, just a couple of them. He spotted Shuri and Lila both talking down the hall near an open window and headed straight for it. The two of them noticed him running, probably had something to say, but he didn’t really process the words so much as he knew they were yelling by the time he jumped out the window.

It was probably a bad spot to pick for a jump; there weren’t even trees at the bottom just pavement, but he didn’t process that he’d jumped out a fifteenth story window until the shield hit the pavement and he hit the shield. Honestly it could have been worse; he definitely felt the impact of hitting the shield, but it didn’t shatter his shoulder or launch him away. However, his breath was knocked from his body and he did scare a few people walking the streets.

“Sorry, excuse me!” he yelled, rolling to his feet and trying to breath enough to fill his lungs and power his legs. Friday couldn’t get him out here so he was free to run down the street and cut through alleys until he was sure the countdown was over. He ran past apartments and restaurants. Past the twenty-four hour coffee shops and the various people still littering the streets. There were probably a lot of other things he passed by as well, plenty of illicit activity out there that he didn’t regularly think about.

He took a sudden left into an alleyway, crossed through it, then immediately got hit with what could have been a truck for all he knew. The force knocked him several feet away and forced him to land on his sore shoulder on the pavement. Once again the wind was knocked from his body and he wheezed trying to get even the minimum air necessary to feel human.

A hand grabbed the back of his shirt to haul him up. “What the fuck Damian!”

Well...

His dad hooked an arm the size of Damian’s torso around his shoulder and hauled him up until his feet were just barely touching the ground and he had to grab at his dad’s forearm to feel stable. His ears heated up at the manhandling.

“Did I win?” he asked.

“You jumped out a window Damian!” his dad yelled.

“You were cheating!” he snapped back. He struggled more, but his dad’s grip was firm.

“I don’t care! How am I supposed to trust you out of the country when you do stuff like this?”

“You did it too!”

“I was running from Hydra!” His dad’s grip loosened just enough for Damian to slip through. His dad was pissed, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth in a straight line. “When I did this stuff it was for a good reason! I didn’t just jump out of windows for fun.”

“Are you gonna honor my win or not?”

“There’s no deal, Damian! You’re not responsible enough to go!”

Pins pricked at Damian’s eyes. This wasn’t part of their stupid competitions, and it wasn’t fair that the one time he won it got called off because he didn’t win right.

“Whatever! I hate these stupid challenges anyway! You just use them to prove you better than me!”

The forgotten shield was just a few steps away, within the circle of discontent. Damian, the fool that he was, didn’t think twice about taking the step necessary to get into range and putting all his energy into a kick that sent the thing all of three feet away from him and caused shooting paint in his foot. He ignored it, because he had a point he wanted to make, but the shock of it all definitely made him want to cry more.

His dad’s hand wrapped around his upper left arm like a vice, and for a second Damian didn’t know what was going to happen. For all he knew his dad was about to hit him. Or he was about to get screamed at. His dad’s jaw clenched, but after a moment he let go.

“We’ll discuss this later.”

Damian avoided his parents for the entire weekend. Which turned out to not be that difficult. The Tower was big and if he wanted to avoid people entirely, it would be more than easy to find a lounge area or kitchen that was completely empty. When he wasn’t in the Tower, he was prowling around New York, normally alone but sometimes with Morgan. Nate had to go home after the party and Morgan had also squeezed in time with her mother’s family that weekend. It was fine; Damian would probably see them next weekend. He just wished he could see them that weekend as well.

They flew home and Damian reluctantly locked himself into his room to finish up the homework he should’ve done on Friday before he left.

His mood must have been pretty obvious, since Tran only needed one look at him to begin her questioning.

“What happened to you?” She leaned against the locker next to his. “Girl troubles?”

“Always.”

“Don’t worry, there’s more in the sea.”

“Someone better pull ‘em out, they’re probably drowning.”

“Didn’t you hear? Women can breathe underwater.”

“No wonder the Starbucks mermaid is a girl.”

Tran snorted. “Seriously what’s wrong? You look really depressed for a guy who was up in New York.”

“Eh, fight with my parents.”

She gasped. “Did you beat up Captain America?”

“Yeah, totally, crushed him with my python biceps.” He flexed his twig-like arms.

“I’m proud of you. Show the man who’s boss.” She held out her fist for a fist bump.

He did spill the actual details to her, but only when he was allowed to take a bathroom break by Mrs. Liu. Tran immediately texted back that she was certain his parents would come around while also complaining about how stupid New Yorkers were, because none of them had their phones ready.

Lunchtime and he was under the tree with his friends like always. He walked past Leon and his friends, most of whom were in sports but none in soccer, and overheard him bragging about a girl he’d had sex with over the weekend.

“Do you think he actually has all those girlfriends?” Joe asked. Oftentimes they wanted to ignore Leon, but he was such a blowhard it was hard to not listen in.

“Who cares?” Tran said. “Do we have to talk about him?”

“Do you have more interesting gossip?”

Tran paused then leaned back until she was in the grass, “Someone at this stupid school needs to get pregnant.”

“And we could try and figure out who’s the daddy.”

“Wouldn’t that be the life?” Tran took a bite of her sandwich. “To answer your question, no I don’t think he’s actually sleeping with all these people.”

“He’s got the hickeys,” Damian pointed out, mostly because he rarely ever left hickeys. So obviously they were left by someone else.

“May all those women realize his dick isn’t worth his mouth.”

“Yep.” His heart skipped a beat. Honestly their romps weren’t that fun, maybe he should stop. From the sounds of things Leon wouldn’t exactly miss him, and Damian wouldn’t have to hear him talking outside of soccer practice anymore.

But that was not going to happen today. Because as long as Leon kept his mouth shut during the act it was kind of enjoyable. And he chose to consider it practice for when someone finally did want to genuinely sleep with him.

Of course he had to repeat that logic in his head after soccer practice that day. He didn’t always sleep with Leon after practice, but he did always wait when Leon slipped a note in his locker to tell him where to meet. Most often it was the lockers about an hour after practice, which was true of this case. Enough time for people to clear out and for Damian to get homework done.

They didn’t really have a lot of foreplay, just went for it when they saw each other. Teeth clicked, tongues got stuck down throats. Honestly he wasn’t a fan of most of it. Leon tended to attack his mouth like it’d wronged him, bumping noses until their faces were both sore. His hands were similarly rough, he’d grab at anything he could and pull or push. During their first few encounters resistance begeth bruising. Nothing too bad, but he didn’t particularly care for the roughness. Half the time Leon’s breath tastes like Gatorade, and the only saving grace to these encounters was that he didn’t have to take off his clothes.

Damian didn’t know what Leon’s deal was with these meetings, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had sex with all those girls with their pants still on as well. Were they even girls? Leon never bragged about the boys he slept with. But the last time he asked Leon had called the whole thing off, and Damian didn’t really care that much to jeopardize getting off.

Their bumping and grinding ended with the knob of the locker digging painfully into Damian’s back. Leon let out three ugly grunts right into Damian’s mouth and a few moments later Damian tried not to whine, but failed anyway. After a moment Damian was unceremoniously dropped onto the floor.

“Was I too heavy for you or something?”

Leon snorted, “No. You were just taking a long time and I gotta go.”

“Fuckbuddy number two about to leave you?”

“Jealous?” Leon opened his locker nearby as Damian pushed himself off the floor.

“Just wondering if it’s worth sleeping with you is all.”

“We’re not sleeping together.”

“What? The fuck do you call this?”

“Foolin’ around.”

Leon left it on that as if he said something that made sense, which he didn’t. Fooling around included sex, but Damian wasn’t about to hunt him down and demand clarification. He didn’t really care to change Leon’s mind. Instead he quickly took a paranoid shower and slathered on deodorant, as if his parents would’ve been able to smell out if he’d had sex or not. There had been a few times where he couldn’t shower before meeting them and he knew they couldn’t. Well, suspected. At least his dad couldn’t, there was no way that man wouldn’t have said anything.

Honestly bad sex really helped hammer in how shitty he felt, because that was the highlight of the past five days and yet his self-esteem was completely shot. All he really wanted to do was go home and maybe take a twelve hour nap until school started the next day. That plan was put on hold when he got home and saw his dad sitting on the porch two pizza boxes next to him.

“You waiting for Pap?”

“Obviously not.” His dad patted a step that was a few below the one he was sitting on. “Come on, let’s talk.”

“Did you steal this from Pap? This whole eat and talk thing?”

“Of course not. It’s not stealing if you give credit.”

One box had a meat lovers and the other had a Mediterranean pizza. Honestly Damian couldn’t really care less what toppings they had, just that he got to eat a slice before his dad turned to the topic of discussion.

“I’m sorry I made you feel bad,” his dad said. “And the Canada thing should’ve been talked about. I shouldn’t have accepted the challenge.”

“So I’m not gonna go?”

“I didn’t say that, but you gotta understand my hesitation. Damian you jumped out of a building.”

“Yeah, and I probably shouldn’t have,” he said. It certainly was fun and exhilarating, but that wasn’t something he should admit to at that moment.

“No, you shouldn’t have. But I don’t exactly have a leg to stand on since you know all of the stupid stuff I did when I was your age.” His dad let out a resigned sigh, then reached over and pulled Damian up by his arm.

“Dad noooo!”

“Humor your old man!” Damian was soon crushed into a hug, on that squeezed at his shoulders making him feel like an unyielding, steal pole being hugged by a bear.

“You’re crushing me.”

“You’re fine,” his dad replied. “You know, I don’t expect you to really understand this, but I’ve sacrificed a lot for you. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get yourself killed. You gotta wait until after I die so I don’t have to deal with it.”

“Okay! I won’t!”

“Good.” His dad gave him a heavy pat on the back before letting him go. “We’ll send you if you don’t give me another heart attack.”

So there was a shot. Honestly that was more than Damian expected coming into this chat, and he held onto that thread as best he could going into finals and then Christmas. Things were busy, practice went on hold, leading up to finals and yet Leon still insisted on a twenty minute meeting in the boy’s locker room whenever he could. His social life was as captivating as always. He also had to finagle a new passport, since he could only assume the one that got him into China had expired. Problem was he couldn’t find any of the documents that would allow him to get a new one.

Unfortunately for Damian, he was completely unaware of the turmoil happening with his parents. He was unaware of his dad hiding his birth certificate with some other hidden documents to bide time. And he was unaware of the conversations that happened when he was out of the house.

“What, you just wanna lock him up or something?” Sam asked, beer in one hand and butt planted firmly on the couch. “What’re you gonna do when he goes to college, huh?”

“I’m not just worried about him leaving, okay? I’m worried that someone will attack him.”

“I think he proved that he can get out of trouble.”

“Jumping out of a window isn’t getting out of trouble.”

“It shows quick thinking.” Sam frowned. Watching Steve pace was making him tired. “This is a hunch, you don’t have actual proof anyone would go after him.”

“There’s plenty of people who’d go after him!”

“Seriously go after him. He’s going to be with Clint’s boy, and Morgan. Do you think Stark’ll send his daughter somewhere actually dangerous? This is probably the safest trip we could send him on barring an actual church in the middle of Antarctica.”

“But he doesn’t need to go with them, half those kids are just going to drink anyway.”

“If you’re so worried about him then give him a few pointers before he goes. But it’s not fair to him to deny him something fun, just because he might be in danger from a threat we haven’t even told him about.”

“He doesn’t need to go though!”

“No, but he wants to. These are his friends, and it’s a normal part of growing up. I trust Nathaniel to lend a hand if Damian needs something and you do too. Unless you have some outstanding debt you want to take care of, there isn’t a good reason to just deny him. Our budget can handle a flight and an AirBnB.”

That blew the wind out of Steve’s sails. He had nothing but a gut feeling and a few hints. The fact that the research that produced Damian had been sold, if not entirely then at least in parts, and knowing that Damian would be so far away left him uneasy. He didn’t think Damian had ever been more than forty miles away from at least one of them. Steve felt justified in worrying How many other cloned children intended to be weapons were floating around? There were enemies they didn’t even know of waiting and they couldn’t rely on their names to keep Damian safe. Someday, someone would be willing to make the attempt and what would happen if Damian couldn’t get away?

“Will telling him make you feel better?”

“Should it?”

“Well, he’ll know to be careful?”

“No he won’t. He’s sixteen.”

“What do you want to do then?”

He could suggest a tracker, and given the circumstances he might be able to argue that it was a smart idea. But he didn’t suggest that. Instead he forced his sixteen year old son up at the ass crack of dawn on a Sunday and dragged the poor boy out to the backyard where the wet grass would hopefully serve as decent padding.

“This is child abuse,” Damian complained, wearing his too large sleep shirt and a pair of basketball shorts that needed to be tied extra tight just to stay up.

“No it’s not, you need to defend yourself up there.”

“It’s Canada!”

“So? Bad things happen in the middle of nowhere. If something happens you need to protect yourself.”

“Why are you so worried about someone hurting me?”

“Because you jumped out a window.”

“Besides that!”

“You’re going to be in a group with two other very high priority kids, that’s why,” he replied. “I just want to see if you can throw a punch.”

The spontaneous training session went just as planned, taking up a few hours until Sam woke up and made pancakes rather than wait for them to be made. The most impressive thing Steve learned was that the changes made to Bucky were definitely passed down, given the fact that Damian did manage to leave a bruise on Steve’s arm. Given how surprising it was for him, he hoped that it would be even more surprising to anyone who tried to attack him.

But Damian was not as happy with their outing as his father was. Once they realized that pancakes were being made Damian begged and pleaded to be let go so he could eat, playing on every past interaction where his father chastised him for missing a meal or whenever the scale accidentally tipped downward. It got him inside where he could eat pancakes loaded with syrup and strawberries. After breakfast he had a few personal chores he needed to do. His parents swore up and down that his social security card was in his room, that he’d left it in there after he applied for his license. But he wasn’t entirely sure of that. He thought he remembered to put it back after he was done.

The Drawer of Important Papers was in the office. It had his stuff along with both his dads' personal information. He’d rooted through the drawer at least a hundred times before and yet he did it one more time just to see if maybe it was in there now. It wasn’t.

Another drawer right under The Drawer of Important Papers was always locked. It wasn’t hard to get into, the key was in his father’s bedside table. He couldn’t remember anything important being stored in there, but it was worth a shot. He’d exhausted all of his other options. His room might be messy, but there was no birth certificate in it. So he grabbed the key and opened the drawer.

It was full of papers and a folder. Damian picked through it, but none of the papers said his name so they definitely weren’t his birth certificate. He flicked through the folder, maybe it had fallen in there, but mostly found charts. He didn’t really pay attention to the charts at first, charts were not a birth certificate and therefore they were useless, but a page at the front caught his eye. It was a page mostly of words that he would not have read if he didn’t catch mention James Barnes.

Damian knew that his dad’s friend was alive, but he didn’t know where the man was and his dad never mentioned him so Damian never asked about him. At first he assumed the report was about Bucky. Maybe the man’s location or something. Then he spied his name in the report, and things got weird.

He locked the drawer and took the folder to his room so he wouldn’t get interrupted. The first page in the folder didn’t give a title or summary, but reading that revealed that it was a mission report. Filled not only with formal write ups but also emails, results of tests, and other documents. He took the pages out and saw that they were stapled. The packets in the back thicker. Each packet was an individual report with information added. There were sixteen total. He breezed through the thinner packet, then read it again because he couldn’t quite believe what he’d read. It knocked on his head, like a guest insisting that they be allowed in.

Captain,

The other Directors and I would like an update on Damian. We’ve found information sold to Fringe detailing part of the process used to create him. Among other things.

We would like this information ASAP

\----

Fury,

I’ve seen no change in Damian’s demeanor recently, besides what is to be expected of a fourteen year old. He hasn’t shown any desire to learn of his heritage, nor has he shown any desire to enlist in any military or intelligence organization. His friend group has not changed, nor has he shown any romantic interest in someone at his school. Thus we haven’t called for any background checks within the past few months.

Regards,

Captain Rogers

There were others like it. Fury asking for updates on his life and one of his dads always responding. They had his physicals, every visit to the doctor, the report on his wisdom teeth even mentioned a recommendation that he get the procedure done due to James’ teeth becoming infected. Every little part of his life was documented and put on record. Because he was a clone. He was a clone of his dad’s friend. And he didn’t know how to feel about that.

It was too much. He couldn’t think enough to process this. All at once he felt unsteady in his house and unable to formulate a thought. All of the papers went in his backpack and he tried to ignore their presence throughout the next. Tried to be normal as he headed out the door. There were other things to focus on. Class, homework, teachers, friends. He had a game at the end of the month that he really wanted to focus on, but he couldn’t. Everytime he managed to pry his mind away from the files, he was forced right back into thinking about them. He wasn’t even entirely sure that these were real, but he also couldn’t imagine any reason someone would falsify them much less why he’d find them in the house.

But the hardest question to answer wasn’t what it meant, it was whether he should ask his parents in the first place. And to answer that he turned to the only two people who might have anything insightful to say.

“Maybe someone planted it to sow doubt.” Morgan said.

“... Why would they do that. What do they think he’s going to do?” Nate asked. “Let’s not entertain conspiracy.”

“Why not? This is already as improbable as anything I could come up with.”

“Because we should take these at face value. Unless you know of some Illuminati shit.”

“Maybe they thought he was like a Manchurian Candidate?”

“Thanks Mor,” Damian sighed. “I just love how your mind works.”

“Also if you two read the first few pages,” Nate said, “Then you would read that Hydra wanted another Winter Soldier.”

“That’s just what Shield thinks,” Morgan said. “They /suspect/ they wanted another Winter Soldier.”

“But then there was an interview on page twenty with a caretaker and she said that’s definitely what happened.”

“She was a caretaker, not a researcher, and definitely not the person able to greenlight a project like this.”

“Well it’s still a better explanation then the shit you’ve been saying, and it’s what Shield thinks so it’s probably true.”

“You only think they’re right because your sister works for them.”

Nate paused, “... I could ask my sister.”

That caused Damian to panic. “No! Don’t tell anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just don’t, okay! What if they do something? What if I get taken away?”

“Damian no one’s going to take you.”

“Then why would they hide it?”

“When would they tell you? What would you do if you were ten and your parents told you that you were a clone.”

“-A clone of your dad’s best friend.” Morgan said.

“Who is also the Winter Soldier.”

“Was.”

“He still could be. He’s out there. Somewhere. Your dad never mentioned him?”

“No, never,” Damian said.

“Maybe you should ask?”

He should. But they needed a good coverup. One that would work for both, because if he changed stories that would immediately trip red flags. There wasn’t a lot in Damian’s personal life that he could use to get onto the topic of James Barnes without being suspicious as fuck. Was there a way to transition from soccer to all the murders the Winter Soldier did? Or to his trial?

But there was one subject they could use. Morgan suggested asking questions in reference to their True Crimes series. Originally he thought of maybe trying to frame the Winter Soldier fiasco as a subject they were going to discuss. That was, however, a bit of a stretch. The trial hadn’t been televised, but it was public enough to include reporters, and it had been quick. The backstory was interesting, but Tony Stark had been the only person who actually wanted to bring him to trial. Reports were conflicted if he wanted actual “justice” or if he wanted some acknowledgement of how wrong his parents deaths were, but he did accept the results. Damian could easily go online and learn all he needed to know about the man. Except where James lived. He could be down the road from their house for all he knew.

Instead he found something a little less on the nose. Back in the '40s, while his dad was performing there had been a dancer, Marcella Vanden, who traveled with him. Not soon after the troupe broke up she was murdered on the way back to the U.S. It was notable because she shared a room with two other women at the time. They’d all gone to sleep at night, and in the morning she was dead with all of her blood drained. Either she’d left the room, gotten killed, and the body was dragged back, or she was somehow drained of blood while in her room.

He thought he could act normal when they split up, but he wasn’t so confident in that when he got home. Pap was at work, so he really should just ask. But his heart raced. He wasn’t so sure he was prepared to really start delving into this. He didn’t know what he’d do if he found something he didn’t want to find.

“Hey Day, eggplant parm or chicken parm?” his dad asked as Damian toed off his shoes.

Damian wasn’t actually hungry, and the sight of his dad rooting around the freezer for dinner items made him feel strangely uneasy. Like he was walking in a dollhouse set up to trick him.

“Eggplant’s fine.”

His dad continued on with the food assembly like it was a normal night, and Damian tried to play along. But every action he did seemed wrong. Normally he headed to his room to do homework while waiting for dinner, but doing so that day made him feel paranoid. Did he go to his room too fast? Did they notice the missing papers? Damian felt like he was walking on eggshells. He rehearsed his questions like he was going to give a speech to every college entrance person in the country.

His dad called him unexpectedly quickly; Damian didn’t know if he lost time stressing or if his dad was just on the ball that day. By the time he was at the table his dad already had one of his shows on and he was thoroughly entranced by the CGI dragons and court politics. Damian pretended to watch, but he’d never actually care what happened in this show. He let his dad have his fun until a commercial break came up.

“Hey dad,” he said, as a toothpaste commercial came on.

“Hm?” his dad grunted.

“Do you know who Marcella Vanden is?”

“No, should I?”

“She was alive in the '30s.”

“Damian I didn’t know every person alive in the '30s.”

“She also was a dancer with you.”

His dad paused, then recognition bloomed in his eyes. “Oh! Marci. What about her?”

“She was murdered after the troupe was disbanded.”

Recognition turned to sadness. “Oh, I hadn’t realized.”

“We found out about her while we were researching stuff for our videos,” he said. “She was murdered in London while sharing a room with three other women. They all went to bed at the same time and when they woke up she was dead, all of her blood was drained.”

His frown deepened. “That terrible. What happened with her family? I know she was an only child.”

“I dunno, we’re still researching,” he said quickly. “But we have a few theories I wanted to run by you.”

“I don’t know how she died.”

“I know, but you knew her so we wanted to see how likely you thought they were.”

“...Okay?”

“Nate thinks that she snuck out to meet someone and was murdered.”

“I doubt it,” his dad said. “Marci would be the last person to just run off with someone and not tell anyone, she always wanted us to tell her when we snuck out. I doubt she’d run off without telling anyone.”

“Okay, well Morgan thinks it was vampires.”

His dad shrugged. “I’d believe it over the other one. But I doubt it.”

“There’s my theory,” he said carefully, “I think the Winter Soldier did it.”

Eyebrows furrowed. Damian tried to find anything in his father’s face that might betray his feelings on the accusation. Was he surprised at the suggestion? Was it, despite the unlikeliness, possible? But all he was, was confused.

“When did this happen?”

“In nineteen forty-five.”

“Doubt it. I think it took a couple of years before he was active. Why would you think it was him?”

He shrugged. “Practice run.”

“Why would they have him drain her blood?”

“See how well he followed orders. I mean, he didn’t just kill did he?”

“He did just kill,” his dad corrected, “By the time they called him in it was just killing.”

“Oh,” he muttered. “He’s still alive right? You two are still friends?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I talk to him and ask?”

This emotion Damian could recognize. It was exasperation. Like what he’d asked was too childish for his age. “You want me to track him down so you can ask him about some weird murder you seem to think he did without any evidence?”

“Yes? I mean, is that too much? You guys talk right?”

“Rarely.” And that was a lie. His dad was a shit liar, he could never even make eye contact. But now he was looking at the T.V. even though it had cycled to another commercial.

“I’ve never met him even though he’s, like, alive and is your best friend.”

“Damian, I don’t think it’s exactly fair to ask a former prisoner of war about the crimes that he may or may not have committed while a prisoner.” Another lie. It was an excuse he’d believe in any other circumstance, but a lie nonetheless.

“I guess.”

“There’s no guessing about it.” His dad began clearing the table. “Look, maybe in the future I can convince him to stay here but until then we have to respect his privacy.”

Which was code for they likely were speaking. Maybe not frequently, but Damian would eat his Switch if his dad hadn’t spoken with James within the past year. It was all over his face. He was dodging the questions and redirecting. Maybe because James asked him. Maybe because he didn’t want to broach the topic. 

So. He knew that he was a clone created by Hydra intended to replace James Barnes, this project was terminated, he was adopted by his parents, and no one had told him in his nearly sixteen year existence. His dad, the best friend of his genetic donor, evaded questions regarding him and wheeled out of the conversation the second he could. Damian didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t know if he should be direct and just ask about it. The worst option, that Nate was convinced was unlikely, was that they were raising him for Shield and that he was supposed to take up something when he got old enough. His dad had insisted on self-defense lessons and was paranoid that someone would take him in Canada. How did this all fit together?

So Damian didn’t know what to do. He applied for his passport, did school, endured the holidays, and generally tried to be normal. As normal as one could be in a situation like this

Sometimes his dads attended the games. It was a bit easier to act normal since he had other people around able to cue him. Tran yelled strategy from the sidelines, Joe held up the same card he’d made freshman year even though it was just a skirmish. Half of his teammates weren’t interested in playing, and the other half took the game way too seriously. Truly there was a reason they were ranked in the dead middle and could not budge.

Thankfully, there were no fights during the game itself. Though things got close. If it wasn’t Leon throwing insults then it was Zhang shouting plans in Mandarin too fast for the rest of them to understand and getting frustrated when the ball failed to get to a striker.

And then they lost. Not exactly life shattering. Damian was a bit preoccupied with other things to really care if they won a glorified practice game. Most of the team were more interested in grabbing milkshakes afterwards, which Damian kinda looked forward too as well. He checked in with his dads, who said they were going for a date night downtown, so he joined his friends and teammates for those milkshakes.

But, of course, he couldn’t just do that. He couldn’t just enjoy a night out and not make a bad decision. He had to look down to see a text from Leon, and meet him back in the locker room on campus. Where things went about as well as they could given the circumstance.

“You should let me stick it in,” Leon said as he yanked Damian’s shirt off., “I was the striker who got the only point.”

“That’s cause you and Germ are bff’s.” He tried kissing Leon to shut him up, but the man pulled back right after contact.

“No, it’s ‘cause he knew I could do it.”

“Fuck off.” If they could just get done with this. Damian felt hands tug at his shorts.

Leon pushed him into a locker then pressed his body closer, “Look, you’re the skinny one here so it’ll be easier for you and -”

In retrospect Damian’s choice in de-escalation was a poor one. Because de-escalation typically meant stopping and walking away. Instead he pulled his left arm back as far as he could then brought it forward. Hitting Leon on the side of his head as hard as he could.

And that was just the start of that.

Steve was completely unaware of the fight his son had picked. Instead, he had his own sexcapade he was cleaning up from. In the shower he couldn’t help but contemplate how strange his sex life was. Steve wouldn’t normally respond positively to insults. He didn't typically enjoy having his face slapped or his ass smacked. Didn’t like being bound or gagged in everyday situations. But then he got a dose of the typical sex hormones and suddenly that was fine, great even. Sex was weird.

Washed, dried, dressed. He left the bathroom to find Sam watching some reality show and Bucky on his phone.

“Did Damian like my gift?” Bucky asked as Steve stuffed his dirty clothes into the backpack they brought.

“What gift?” Sam asked.

“The one I left in his locker.”

“He didn’t mention anything. What’d you give him?”

“A combat knife.”

“What? You can’t give a sixteen year old a knife! What’s he gonna do with a knife?”

“Protect himself?”

“What the fuck Barnes?”

“Can you two not avoid a fight for one night?” Steve sighed.

“It’s a knife Steve! I’m not even sure it’s legal for him to be running around with one of those! Did you even check Barnes?”

“It’s not illegal to own a knife!”

“Did you check?”

Bucky clamped his mouth shut.

“See? If he does have one, he better not be packing it. I don’t need to be picking him up at the border.”

“Why can’t you guys just enjoy the afterglow?” Steve belly flopped onto the bed. Bucky had the room for another day, but he and Sam had to get back home soon so he wanted to smell the fancy fabric softener one last time.

“Yeah Wilson!”

“Eat shit, you fossil!”

“That better not be a foreplay insult!” Steve warned even as he refused to lift his face from the pillow, “My ass has had enough!”

“Yeah Wilson!”

“I hate you.”

“I swear to god you two’ll be throwing hard candy at one another in the retirement home,” Steve complained.

“Yeah, Wilson!”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“I think we should go before this leads to another round. I don’t have another change of clothes.” Steve picked himself up and grabbed the bag. Their farewells were a bit more subdued, since there was not going to be any more time together. They’d both miss Bucky, but convincing him to actually come home with them was a fight Steve was not feeling up to that night. He’d been losing sleep over Damian’s trip and he couldn’t really pin down if he was justified in his nervousness or if he was just like any other parent, always at least a little worried about his baby facing the world

They got home to a dark house. Which was worrying. It was approaching midnight, and while Damian didn’t have a formal curfew, he and Sam typically expected Damian to be home by ten. But before Steve could actually start worrying Sam peaked out the window and spied their son attempting to climb the tree outside to get to his room.

“Oh boy, I can’t wait to see what spawned this decision,” Sam said sarcastically.

“I’ll deal with it. Why don’t you go to bed?” He offered.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I think the both of us asking questions will make him flighty.”

“If you want answers then I think I might be the better option.”

“I can handle it. I don’t always blow up when he’s making stupid decisions.”

“Alright, yell if you need anything.”

Sam went up to their room while Steve headed out the house and around to the backyard where the tree was. Damian had managed to reach near the top, but he wasn’t so far up that a light shined from Steve’s phone didn’t make him freeze immediately.

“What are you doing?” He asked. If he sounded tired it was because he was; how was this the most complicated part of child rearing and not the stupid diapers?

“Nothing!” Damian squeaked from the branches. He didn’t look directly down at Steve which raised another red flag.

“Why don’t you come down Day?” he suggested.

Damian tensed up, but after a moment he began to slowly climb back down the tree. Once at the bottom Steve could see the big bruise on Damian’s left cheek; just the sight of it made Steve’s stomach clench and he had to resist walking over to check for other injuries.

“What’s the bruise from Damian?”

Damian’s hand flew up to cover the injury. “Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing. Who were you fighting Damian?”

“No one, it’s nothing! Can I go?”

“No you cannot go, not until you tell me what you were up to.”

“I just met up with my friends!” he yelled, “Why are you making such a big deal about this?”

“Because this isn’t like you! You’ve been moody and withdrawn for weeks now!” he practically yelled. He then took a deep breath and tried to think of what Sam would say. “Damian if you’re in trouble you need to tell me. I can’t help you if I don’t know.”

“I’m not in trouble! Look can’t I just go to my room? Please?” he begged.

Steve didn’t know what to do. What could he say at that moment that would get Damian to actually talk to him? Sam might’ve had the answer. But it was just him and he didn’t know. So he let Damian head up to his room without another word.

Sam was in bed, but he wasn’t asleep. He was silent as Steve changed into pajamas and got into bed next to him.

“Doesn’t sound like it went as planned.”

He sighed,.“Nope. It didn’t.”

“Was it that bad?”

“It was his whole left cheek Sam!”

Even in the dark Steve could see Sam’s frown. “I was afraid of this.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I have a theory,” Sam said. “But not a lot to confirm it.”

“What is it?”

“I think he might be dating someone.”

“What? Since when?”

“Probably for at least a month before his mood started changing.”

“Why do you think that of all things?”

“He’s showing all the signs of being in a not great relationship. Mood change, withdrawn. That sort of thing. A few weeks ago I found a condom in his backpack, and now he’s got what sounds like a bruise.”

“You went through his backpack?”

“It fell out of his backpack,” Sam clarified. “I picked it up wrong and it fell out. And it’s not one of ours.”

“Goddammit,” Steve sighed. “What’re we gonna do? I mean who is this kid?”

“Hope it’s a kid.”

“Don’t. Please Sam, I just want to deal with one bombshell at a time.”

“We don’t even have one confirmed bombshell.”

“Well what should we do then? Look through his phone? Scrub his social media? What’s Bucky say?”

“We’re not going through his phone,” Sam stated. “And Bucky hasn’t noticed anything unusual.”

“So we need him to talk to him. Get him to fess up.”

“No, we need to give him time to cool off on his trip.”

“What? We’re still sending him on this thing? Should we be rewarding this behavior?”

“It’s not rewarding. He’s going to be with friends, friends who’ve been very good for him, so maybe he’ll come back and we can better talk to him. But, if he doesn’t go then that just means that whoever is bothering him has a week where he’s bored and unmonitored with no one to talk to, unless you plan on taking a week off just to entertain him.”

“Goddammit.” This was not a decision he wanted to be making. He wanted Damian to tell them what was bothering him; he wanted to fix it. He didn’t want to worry that someone else was taking advantage of his son and that it was all happening when he wasn’t looking. Damian was supposed to be safe here.

“Look, this is going to be difficult for all of us. But we can’t make rash decisions. We can’t give him a reason not to trust us because this could ultimately be about something a lot smaller than we think. He’s a teenager. And he’s dealing with things now that to him are big because he hasn’t had the chance to experience them like we have.”

“Yeah. Yeah- I guess you’re right.”

Steve slept, not as well as he would’ve wanted but no better than the other two men in the house. He felt Sam shift in the bed periodically, and he could hear Damian doing some last minute packing in his room. Eventually Steve patience wore thin, so he headed down the stairs to the living room and turned the T.V. on low so he had some background noise. On the screen two women tried to sell cake tins and molds. Steve pulled out his phone.

[Self] Hey Tony  
[Self] Sorry for bothering you at night, but I’d like to ask for a favor.

He expected for it to be a while, but clearly old habits die hard and the little dots formed almost immediately.

[Tony] What’s up?

[Self] Damian’s going up to Canada and   
I was wondering if you could bug his phone

[Tony] Why?  
[Tony] What do you think is going to   
happen?  
[Tony] What has Fury told you?

[Self] Don’t you do it to Morgan?

[Tony] Yes.  
[Tony] But it’s not your usual M.O.  
[Tony] What’s going on?  
[Tony] You gotta tell me now cause   
[Tony] I’m not sending Morgan into a war zone.

[Self] There’s not going to be a war zone.  
I’m just nervous sending him out and I just want  
to make sure I know where he’s at.

[Tony] Sure I can do it.  
[Tony] Probably better since Morgan’s good   
at finding it on her phone  
[Tony] Now I have a second pair of eyes.  
[Tony] Is he on your home wifi right now?

[Self] Yeah

[Tony] Alright, I can get Friday on there  
[Tony] For the trip  
[Tony] I’ll take her off when he’s back.

[Self] Does Friday record everything?

[Tony] She just let’s me know if there’s something to set off an alert  
[Tony] Like fight sounds  
[Tony] Or a known criminals voice. If it’s in a database  
[Tony] No recording, I am capable of restraint

[Self] How noble

[Tony] Thank you  
[Tony] Also done. He’s moving around in his room a lot

[Self] Yeah he’s probably packing

[Tony] Really?  
[Tony] And he’s gonna be up at five to leave?  
[Tony] I stg kids these days are indestructible.

As bad as Steve felt doing something Sam explicitly said not to do, it did end up being a net positive, emotionally, since he knew that there would be another eye on Damian.

Steve was able to sleep a bit easier than that. By the time he went to bed, Damian’s light was out and Sam had also managed to make it to a light snooze.

In the morning Damian was the first one up because he had several different alarm apps on to make sure he was awake for his five A.M pick up. He also had a text from Nate letting him know that the group was on time, so he had twenty minutes to find food and something caffeinated before he was out the door. He found granola and a couple of the gross high protein bars that managed to meet all the calories he needed in the morning. There was sweet tea in the fridge, which he finished off, but he didn’t really have time to clean the container.

His Pap came down the stairs about ten minutes before Nate and his friends would arrive. Damian didn’t know how much his dad had told him, but he didn’t seem to have that in mind when he saw the very dry bars Damian was trying to choke down.

“Oh so now you start eating this stuff. If I had known going to Canada would’ve improved your diet we woulda moved up there,” his Pap said, sitting across from him at the table.

“If we lived up there, I’d just be able to drink maple syrup instead.”

“You would’ve. When you were a kid you couldn’t get enough of the stuff,” his Pap leaned back in his seat, “I remember one time you took a big swig of the stuff and it ended up on T.V.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Yeah, we were interviewed and I let ya go at it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m sure! I’m not senile yet,” he said “You’re gonna be careful up there right? No being stupid?”

He sighed. “Yes Pap. I promise I won’t jump out of another window.”

“Yeah, cause you’re not taking the shield with you. Also eat right. I don’t want to hear about your sixth stomach ache cause you went hard on the poutine.”

“Fine, I won’t tell you about it.”

“Eat vegetables.”

“I’m sure I’ll find one.”

His phone rang, Nate and his friends were outside in their already cramped van. He said his last good-byes to his Pap and ran out the door. His backpack went in the back with the others and he was crammed into a seat near the back where people’s smaller luggage was already collected. From there it was a four hour drive up to New York City where they picked up Morgan. After that it was an eight hour ride through the border up to Ottawa. There had been suggestions of stopping on their way there early in the planning process, but no one really wanted to spend a day in the middle of nowhere, Canada. But they did stop at several points to eat.

One of those stops was at about noon just past the border. Damian had just switched out his normal SIM card for an international one so he wanted to make sure it worked while his sandwich was assembled.

“Their Wi-Fi ain’t working,” one of Nate’s friends, Jenn, said. She pushed her phone back in her pocket and decided to socialize with Aaron and Nate.

Unfortunate for her, but Damian was connecting just fine from the looks of things. He was able to check his email and open up a few web pages while the others talked about what bars they’d want to hit up once they got there. He, Morgan, and Veronica, Nate’s other friend, were more focused on the here and now with either their phones or taking in the surrounding area. Veronica was outside petting the dog and Morgan was debating getting a brownie.

“You have Wi-Fi?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah.”

She frowned. “Can I see your phone?”

“Why?”

“Just let me see it.”

He reluctantly passed over his unlocked phone for her to look at. She flicked through a couple of things, then took it outside to the car without asking. Damian thought to stop her, but their food came and he did trust Morgan to not do anything he wouldn’t like. After ten minutes she came back with his phone and ate her sandwich.

“Friday was on it.”

“What?”

“Friday, my dad’s A.I? She always throttles public Wi-Fi. Don’t worry, I got rid of her. I’m really good at it now dad probably won’t even notice.”

“Why would Friday be on my phone?”

She shrugged. “Could because of that thing you were worried about. Make sure you make it home. Dad’s always trying to bug my phones with her to make sure I don’t die or whatever.”

Oh, so his parents were worried that he’d, what, die? Did they not trust him? Maybe they thought someone actually was after him. He felt conflicted, both with the desire to put Friday back on and also call his parents and ask why they would need to do that.

He had a lot of thoughts on the matter, but not a lot he could articulate. Had his parents done this before? And if so, for how long? He tried not to visibly let his mood drop and get everyone else’s attention, thankfully he didn’t need to worry about it too hard. Everyone was talking and laughing, Morgan was somehow sleeping, and no one looked back to see him sulking. They arrived at the hotel in Ottawa late at night. The older two guys were sharing a room, Morgan’s dad sprung for a room that she invited Damian to share with her, while Veronica and Jenn were in rooms on the other end of the hotel.

Almost immediately after arriving, Jenn and Nate wanted to go out.

“We’ll probably be back in a few hours,” she said from the hallway. “Veronica you can join us if you want?”

“Maybe in a bit,” she said, “But Nicole texted me and I kinda wanted to see her.”

Jenn’s nose scrunched up. “Are you sure you should meeting her alone? At night?”

“Yeah, it’ll be fine, I know what she looks like.”

“Okay… let us know if you’ll need anything.”

Judging by the way Nate grabbed Jenn’s hand, Damian doubted the two would be available at all for the next twelve hours. He glanced back to Morgan who clearly saw it too, but she stayed quiet until they were out on the street heading in the direction of food.

“You think this was an elaborate ruse so Nate could hang out with Jenn?” she asked. “They seem awfully close.”

“Maybe…” He shrugged. “I dunno. Why would he hide her?”

“Maybe why would she hide him? She might have strict parents.”

“Or they might not be serious. Didn’t he have a different girlfriend a month ago?”

“No?” she sighed. “Whatever, it’s none of our business.”

“I guess no. Hopefully he doesn’t get her pregnant.”

Morgan doubled over laughing. They eventually found a poke place that was still open then headed back to the hotel where they both passed out in their beds until it was bright out.

Nate, predictably, had a terrible hangover in the morning so he wasn’t interested in going to the war museum like he and Veronica were. Morgan went along so she could take selfies next to all the displays and then text her dad which ancient tank he built. Veronica seemed to enjoy the exhibit until halfway through when she got a text from the mysterious Nicole and decided to visit with her instead. He didn’t really mind. Veronica was nice, but he hadn’t had the chance to really talk to her since they arrived. The rest of the museum was just as fun with Morgan.

At night he and Morgan had planned on doing a haunted walk through Ottawa. It seemed like something fun two minors could do. Morgan had even changed into her all black ensemble before things changed. Veronica came up to their room and invited them both to come with her and Nicole to a dinner theater just a block away from the hotel. It didn’t sound as fun, but Morgan promised that they could do the walk the night after.

“I just don’t think we should leave Veronica alone if we can help it,” she said.

“She’s not alone, she’s with Nicole.”

“We don’t know Nicole though, none of us do. If Nicole’s inviting us, then we should go.”

“Where’s Nate, he doesn’t want to go?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s busy with Jenn.”

“... There was a lot of noise coming through the door.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re definitely gonna get pregnant at this rate.”

“I hope they name it after me!”

Nicole was nice. She gave them both a warm smile and shook their hands. She and Veronica walked with their arms around each other’s waists down to the venue. The performance was Hairspray, and the menu was '60s themed. Damian ordered the Chicken a la King just so he could get as many calories in him as possible. The performances were good, the food was decent. Not as fun as a haunted walk, but it certainly had started out as a nice night. However, things went a bit south when both Veronica and Morgan began to suffer what was clearly a bout of food poisoning from their orders of meatballs. They ended up leaving before the end of the second half.

“You guys don’t have fevers,” Nicole muttered. The walk seemed pretty long since Damian was scared Morgan was going to puke all over him. It seemed like a really bad food bug, but they’d also traveled pretty long the day before.

He and Nicole helped Veronica and Morgan to Veronica’s room. Damian then went down and managed to convince staff to let them borrow a bucket in case of a bathroom traffic jam while Nicole helped the girls change. When he got back up Veronica was in her bed and Morgan was resting on a few pillows with a blanket over her.

“How ya feelin’ Mor?” he asked as he set the bucket next to her.

“Like I just got my period.”

He gave a small laugh. “Gross.”

“I think I just need to rest, Nate’s driving wasn’t exactly the smoothest.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Damian.” Nicole said, looking up from her phone, “The corner store a few blocks away is still open. Can you get some Pepto Bismol for them?”

“You don’t think they should just sleep it off?”

“It should help right? I’ll be here when you get back. Let’s swap numbers so you can call me if you need anything.”

She gave him her number and he sent a text to make sure she had his. Then he went down to the store, which was busy despite the late hour. Though people seemed to be like him, picking up over the counter medication for a sick loved one. Damian grabbed some Pepto Bismol, Tylenol, and some antacids. He then paid and left.

He walked back towards the hotel across a couple of streets. It was approaching midnight and he wanted to get back to the hotel quickly, so he ducked down the alleyway near the hotel, Not thinking much of it.

A poor choice. One he’d regret. Because in the dark, sandwiched between two buildings, he was completely unaware of the person coming up behind he. He was completely unable to defend himself when the person pulled out a chloroformed cloth and forcefully covered his nose and mouth. There was nothing he could do to stop this person from pulling him away from the hotel.

They dumped his phone in a trash can as they loaded his body in the back of a truck. Then they drove northwest, and then north. To a location covered in snow, with little access to the outside world. Away from every loved one he had.


	7. Seven

Damian knew something was wrong before he even had the chance to open his eyes. He was bound and gagged in a cold van. The road was bumpy, and his assailants were blasting some music on the radio. Once he was able to process this all he began to panic. He wanted out of his bonds; he wanted to kick and scream; he wanted to get out. And he did everything he could to squirm and get out. But nothing moved. He was stuck.

He had no idea who was doing this or what they wanted. Part of him hoped it was a weird test. Or a prank. Anything other than what it seemed to be.

He couldn’t figure out the time, nor how long he’d been on the road. They drove for hours, how many didn’t matter, then stopped at some base. He could tell it was a base because of all the concrete. But he couldn’t ask where or why because two men in dark clothes, faces covered, hauled his body from the back of the van and drugged him again. When he woke up a second time it was in a concrete cell. Freezing cold. The blanket was heavy, but he didn’t have any warmer clothes so he still shivered. They’d untied him, but he couldn’t exactly leave. The barred door was locked tight and way too heavy for him to open.

There were no windows. Damian supposed that if there were, it would only confirm that he was in the middle of a frozen wasteland, with no one else within a visible distance. Completely stranded. He searched his pockets for a phone and felt even more panicked when he realized they’d, predictably, tossed it long before they’d even left Canada.

He wanted to bang on the cell door. Yell and scream to be let out, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. He could just stare at the doorway and hope they didn’t want anything from him. That maybe someone would rescue him.

In the movies some scary dude always walked in to chat with his prisoner almost immediately after they woke up so that they could explain their evil plan and make some threats. In this case, it took hours for Damian to finally have any interaction and instead of some rugged leader of the group it was a guard. His face was covered with a scarf and goggles and he wasn’t much taller than Damian, but he was carrying a gun on his hip and he easily had a hundred pounds on Damian, not that that was hard. Damian quietly followed him while another guard trailed behind. They led him down dark, concrete halls past two empty cells. He kept track of the direction. Right, then right again down a hallway, left, right into a room. A sterile, hospital-like room. More intimidating then his check -ups had ever been.

The guards shoved him into the seat, then bound his wrists and ankles down to the chair and gagged his mouth. His struggling was fruitless. He wasn’t getting out of this by himself.

He was left alone in the room, though he did see the guards standing by each side of the door so it wasn’t as if he could make an escape. It took just a few minutes before someone else joined him. She was old. A redhead with a stern face. Behind her came a young man, a guard from the looks of it. He pushed a cart with various sample cups and needles. Damian tried to stay calm and failed as his heart raced and he panicked. The woman spoke to the man in quick French, then turned to him and shined a light in his eye. He didn’t try to fight, Which made for a surreal experience. If he ignored the way panic made him want to throw up, then the first few physical tests could’ve been mistaken for a normal physical.

She then turned to grab some things from the cart. She fiddled with some of the little slips that she used to wipe down part of his forearm. Damian could guess what would happen next, and tried to resist as best he could. He squirmed and tried to say something from underneath the gag, but she paid him no mind. The needle felt like fire going into his vein. His heart raced as the vial filled with red blood. She stole three vials of his blood from him and when all was done, put a bandage on like she was a normal doctor and not some kidnapper with a degree. The guard wheeled the cart away and she left without a word.

Back in his cell he went. No one talked to him, and he tried not to shake. Where were his parents, where were his friends? Was there any way he could contact them? There had to be. Who would settle out here in the buttfuck of nowhere without a means of contacting someone else?

He had no chance to look for a radio or anything that he might be able to use to get in contact with someone. But his knowledge of what even to do if he were captured was limited. His parents had always told him to scream and shout, make a scene to avoid being taken. They didn’t mention what to do if it got this far. He was left alone in his cell, this time for another few hours, until they brought a tray of food it.

The food was slipped through a slot. From where Damian sat in the corner he could already tell it was paste and bars with a water bottle thrown in. He didn’t want any of it even though he was starving. So he ignored it entirely and let his stomach growl and revolt all it wanted.

A man barked something through the door. It startled Damian, but he refused to move or even respond. A pause, and then the bark came a second time in a language Damian recognized:

“Mange la nourriture!”

He didn’t know what they said, and he didn’t care. They could take his blood and run their tests but they couldn’t actually force his body to move.

“Si vous ne mangez pas, nous utiliserons un tube!” The voice said.

“Eat a dick!”

The voice muttered something to its cohorts, then went quiet.

Movies were pretty sparse on what happened to captured people. He supposed it didn’t make for good entertainment to watch someone sit in a cell for hours, too scared to sleep, but too tired to do anything else. Not that there was anything else to do in a cell. But they didn’t hit him, which was shocking. They didn’t insult him or hurt him some other way. There was toothpaste to brush his teeth with, toilet paper and a toilet. He was left alone for a few days, and during this time he assumed there was some sort of threat being made. We have your son give us twenty million dollars and the Hulk’s autograph. Maybe that’s what the blood was for. Proof that they had him. He chose to think of it in that way rather than the other possibilities.

A day or two into his capture, he was led down a different path. Right, left, left. A big room with weapons everywhere. And for a moment he thought this was it. Execution by firing squad.

Instead, a man came up, not like the guards he was a bit shorter with a beard and a different uniform of mostly white and blue.

“Savez-vous comment tirer?” he demanded.

Damian didn’t respond.

“Utilisez celui-ci.” He gestured to a lone pistol on a nearby table. Implication clear.

“No,” he stated.

The small man frowned. “Obtenez le docteur,” he said to the guards.

He was dragged back through the facility to the medical room and once again strapped down and left alone for several minutes alone in the room. Not enough time for him to formulate an escape, but certainly enough time to begin panicking. No amount of struggling could even make the bindings budge.

The doctor came in with her aid pushing a small cart. Like before there were various needles and vials. But Damian knew better than to assume they’d just take more blood. He struggled and screamed. If there was any way he could make this difficult or inconvenient then he would do it. He would not sit back and let them do what they wanted to him anymore. He was clearly not a hostage.

She ignored him. The struggling and screaming did nothing to stop the doctor from finding the vial she was looking for and attaching one of the needles. All his struggling made the needle feel like a knife. Like he’d been stabbed through the arm and if he looked he’d see the blood tip poking out the back of his arm. Removing the needle didn’t stop the pain. In fact it spread. His heart raced so fast it felt as if it had stopped. Stars danced behind his eyelids. And time escaped him.

He hadn’t fallen asleep, but he did lose what had to be hours. By the time he was aware of anything, he was back in his cell, shaking and sick with all of his hair cut off. Another tray of paste at his door, but he didn’t think he would be able to keep the stuff down so he rolled over and tried to piece himself back together. He felt weakened, shakened. His brain was tired, and he missed his home so much he felt sick. He hadn’t been away that long and yet he already felt like he was missing pieces of his home life. Like he was forgetting faces and places.

Damian Cole Rogers. Sixteen years old. Born November 10th 2016. Child of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. Damian Cole Rogers. Sixteen years old. Born November 10th 2016. Child of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. Damian Cole Rogers. Sixteen years old. Born November 10th 2016. Child of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson.

They left him alone for hours in his cell. It made his skin feel like it was peeling off. Like bugs were crawling under it. He wanted someone, anyone, around to talk to. Just so he wasn’t alone in an empty box with his thoughts.

His thoughts were, unfortunately, answered by a guard who dragged him back to the medical room. He was once again strapped down while tools were wheeled in. There were no needles, just a feeding tube. His heart sped up and his stomach churned. Struggling did nothing. And he was forced to endure the feeling of a tube snaking its way down towards his stomach. He watched as they filled the tube with a mysterious paste and then left him alone. The container emptied itself into his stomach, and Damian wanted to throw it all back up. Let the paste mix with bile and spit. Maybe it would cause an infection and they’d just stop. He wouldn’t be useful anymore.

But he couldn’t bend over to puke. And he couldn’t force himself to puke in that position. The bag eventually emptied, and his stomach was eventually filled. The tubing was removed and he was shoved back towards the main room where another person was waiting for him. She was tall, with a firm jaw and short hair.

“Combien sait-il?” she asked his guard.

“Les rapports disent qu'il est non formé.”

She frowned. “Je peux dire. Maigre n'est-ce pas?”

“Le docteur essaie de le réparer.”

She barked orders at him, which he didn’t understand. Demanding that he punch and kick at dummies. He did not want to do this, his body screamed at him to not do this. Moving was a Herculean task and he simply had no energy to do so. Whatever she wanted to teach him he could not learn. And eventually he was back in his cell.

After a few hours they deposited another tray of mush for him to completely ignore. Hours later another tray was deposited, but he resolutely stared at the wall. Once again he was dragged to the medical room and given a feeding tube and paste instead. Another meeting with the man who demanded he shoot and reload and reassemble. The woman yelled at him to punch and kick. If he did any of these horribly he was also dragged again to the medical room and injected with needles that made his mind race and stop, made his skin peel and squirm, made his heart race and freeze.

Damian Cole Rogers. Sixteen years old. Born November 10th 2016. Child of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. Damian Cole Rogers. Sixteen years old. Born November 10th 2016. Child of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson.

His cell was white and the training room was red. The medical room was gray and the hallways blue. Guns were silver and fighting black. When he was unsatisfactory, they turned his mind to static. Static was bad. It was painful and confusing. Sometimes it made all the colors and shapes drip into one.

“Combien de temps vous ont-ils donné, docteur?”

“Une année.”

“C'est ça? Est-ce qu'ils s'attendent à ce que vous échouiez?”

“Le directeur veut un retour sur son investissement.”

“Mais juste un an? N'avaient-ils pas besoin de cinq?”

“Il soupçonne que les informations qu'il a achetées n'étaient pas exactes.”

“Ce n'est jamais précis. Selon lui.”

“C'est la nature de l'industrie.”

Damian Cole Rogers. Sixteen years old. Born November 10th 2016.

They made a mistake one day. A small knife. A small series of mistakes. The tall woman did not realize he’d pocketed a small knife during training. It stayed with him under the sleeve of his flannel all the way to the medical room. They bound up his feet first. Then his right arm. So that it was the left he had to use to do the deed. The guard collapsed onto the floor when the knife impaled his jugular. He cut the bindings with ease and stole the fallen rifle.

The two guards outside the room died quickly. As did the doctor and the guard pushing the tray down the hall.

He made it outside the facility where the freezing winds assaulted his face. Around him was snow and just a peek of the setting sun. White upon white that he immediately began to walk through. One step in front of the other. Any direction. It didn’t matter where. As long as he was not back amongst the grays and the blues and the blacks. The shapes yelling at him.

They followed. He stopped them. Firing five bullets and kill six. He ran and ran until the sun could be seen once again and, by then he’d encountered no others. He ran as far as he could and in the end it wasn’t far enough. When all his energy left him they found him half collapsed, and dragged him back to the grays and the blues and the blacks.

They shoved him back into his gray cage for the longest time yet. So long that his bled, scratching at his skin. New faces new orders. The doctor was gone, and so were many of the guards who watched but said nothing. A man replaced the woman. Cruel and vocal. He yelled and hit. If so much as a finger was raised towards the man then he was dragged back towards the white medical room and his mind was filled with static. He missed the woman’s clinical indifference. Missed being the poked bug under the microscope.

Damian Cole Rogers. Sixteen years old.

The man hung up a calendar. Half the days were already marked. The picture was bright and yellow. It went up in the gray medical room and whenever he was set up with the tube another day was marked off. When the days ran out it he flipped the page and a new set of days were there. The yellow sunshine went to a beach to schoolbooks. One of the days had been circled in red. And on that day he was taken to the training room where an unfamiliar agent sat. He exchanged words with the man.

“Tue-le.”

The agent had a knife, big and sharp. This knife swirled and jabbed with precision. When it sliced through skin it became a silver red.

Fast, deadly. And yet, that did not save this agent. The order may have been for the agent, but he did not fulfill it. Because in the end the agent was dead. But this was not satisfactory. Because the silver knife had sliced through his skin. And he was broken so he had to be fixed. The put a needle through his stomach and covered the mistake until it was white and not red. The man screamed his mistakes and then struck him. He was brought back to his gray cell.

Damian Cole Rogers.

Screams and gunfire. Conflict, just beyond the gray cell walls. He could not see it and he could not join it so he did not pay attention to it. No orders had been given. It was not his problem. Yet still his body tensed and his heart raced. Maybe the door would open and they’d kill him. Maybe they’d leave and he’d be left to rot with the rest of the dead bodies.

The sounds of fighting bled into one another. Then they grew further and then closer. Then sporadic and random. Until the sounds stopped entirely. There was a person alive, wandering the hallways. He found himself listening to the small sounds as they grew closer and closer. Until they stopped outside his gray cell and opened the door.

He tried not to look. This was not the man or a guard so he didn’t care what they did. Footsteps approached him and he tensed up as if expecting to be struck. Instead the hand shook his shoulder.

“Get up, we gotta get moving.”

A steel-like hand wrapped around his upper arm and lifted him up until he was on his feet. The figure pulled him along until his own feet worked on their own. The strange man guided him out of the bunker and into the whiteness. Even more cold and barren than it had been during his failed escape attempt. The chill cut through his thin thermal and shoes. The stranger set a quick pace, heading in a direction at least ninety degrees to the right of where he’d headed during his escape. There was no explanation to who this man was. His face was covered against the chill and his voice unrecognizable. But he’d clearly killed everyone in that base, so not following him wasn’t an option.

They quickly came upon a town, so small there wasn’t even a single road that lead to it. Instead it was a simple group of houses with several already abandoned. A person spotted their approach and came to meet them outside the edge of town.

“We don’t want no trouble,” the man said.

“There was trouble not too far from you. It’s gone now. We just need a place for the night.”

“What kinda trouble was there?”

“Nothing that’ll bother you now.”

The village man allowed them to stay in one of the more recently vacated homes. It was old and small, but there was enough space for the both of them to lay down. He sat up on one side, a strange sort of anxiety taking over him as facts settled in and he realized he was alone with a man he had no reason to trust. He could be following this man to a situation that was no better than the one he’d been freed from.

“Why don’t you rest? I’m going to see if I can get a signal.”

The man left, but he likely didn’t wander far. So he leaned back on the ground and looked up at the ceiling. Nothing around to warm up with. But the walls stopped the chill much like his cell had. He curled up in a ball much like he did in his cell. Sleep did not come.

Eventually the man returned. He stepped inside and draped some heavy cloth on top of him.

“They sold it to me,” the man said. “We have to be out in six hours.”

The It was a jacket. Homemade by one of the locals. Warm enough to stave off the chill. It kept him warm but did not help him sleep.

The man pulled off his hat and scarf to reveal a face that was the same as Damian’s. Older and weathered. He turned until he was looking at the wall rather than the man and pushed bile back down in his stomach. After a few hours they were back to walking.

He was not informed of where they were going, nor did he ask. All he focused on was putting one foot in front of the other until they arrived at another village. This one was slightly bigger, but no less remote. Once again the man spoke with someone.

There was a red building near the center of town. A health center, that he was taken to. A woman gave him a room and ran him through a quick check-up. She then told him to rest on the bed and left. He didn’t think he would get any rest, but he leaned back in the bed anyway. When he opened his eyes he was in a different room filled with beeping from the various pieces of equipment he’d been hooked up to. His jacket and shoes had been set in a chair nearby. The sun was just beginning to set outside the window which gave him a view of a city. There was no sight of the man.

He considered making an escape from this strange place. But he didn’t know where he was, and despite his rest he was so tired. More tired then he’d been before he’d fallen asleep. And he wasn’t alone, he could hear the nurses chatting outside so he was in some sort of ward. A nurse came to check on him.

“I can get you some water,” she offered, “You best sleep now because visiting hours start in six hours.”

This was hardly the first hospital stay for him, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. So he leaned back and slept while he could. Even before visiting hours start the hospital became abuzz with shift changes. A nurse brought him food along with two of the high caloric drinks that made his stomach churn and put him off his meal so much that he pushed it all away and didn’t take a bite. Eventually the nurse took it away and replaced the tray with some apple snacks they normally gave out to kids.

He could tell visiting hours started when a family passed by his room. He stared up at the ceiling as if staring at it long enough would bring him back to sleep.

A knock came from the open door. He expected a nurse, and instead got his dad filling up the door space. And suddenly Damian was filled with exhaustion and relief and so many other emotions he couldn’t properly filter.

“Hey, Day,” his dad said quietly.

And just like that he broke down. Hot, fat tears welled and his nose ran. He made deep, wretched sobs that hurt with their intensity. His dad pulled him close and just sobbed harder.

“I know honey. I know.”


	8. Eight

The problem with coming home from a traumatic event was not just dealing with the mental aftermath of something like that, but dealing with everyone as they dealt with him. He didn’t want to talk to anyone else when he was transferred to the hospital in DC from the Yellowknife hospital. What was he supposed to say? Half the time he was so tired he couldn’t tell the difference between his dreams and real life. Sometimes he’d think he was living his life, but then he’d be back in the cell and people were barking orders at him. And he’d wake up in his bed at random hours.

He didn’t want people to see him like this. Like a shadow. Recovery was difficult because he desperately wanted to talk to people like he used to, to interact, to just go back and live his life, but he couldn’t. Even if everyone he knew ignored what happened to him, he still couldn’t react like he’d used to. He didn’t smile the same or argue the same. It was like they’d pulled his face from his head, and cut all of the connections between his brain and his expressions. Like there used to be ribbon connections making sure everything ran as it should, and now they were all disconnected.

They hooked him up to tubes, gave him various drugs, and set him up with shrinks and psychiatrists. Visiting was sporadic outside of his dads, but he could easily spend the entirety of the visiting hours completely unaware of what was happening. Snow eventually began to fall outside his window. At one point he woke up in his bedroom at home rather than the hospital room. The space was so foreign, he didn’t recognize it at first.

When he finally felt aware of his surroundings, like he could touch his sheets and feel the chill, it felt like he was actually waking up. Like he was actually present in the world for the first time in a long time, and not just drifting through it. He could process that it was snowing outside. That it was around midday. He could actually hear how quiet it was outside, and the low thrum of a cooking show downstairs. There was not a tube down his throat, but there was one unwrapped one on his dresser so he was probably getting that one for dinner. He’d been dressed in one of his really big sleep shirts and a pair of sleep pants.

He took a trip to the bathroom, but after that the most pressing matter was the way, his stomach rumbled.

Downstairs his father sat at the table with a puzzle in front of him half done. The cooking channel had some guy talking about pancakes on.

“Hey, Day,” his Pap said. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” he muttered. His voice felt a little flaky and underused.

“Are you hungry? You want something?”

He nodded. “What do we have?”

“Soup and yogurt,” his father said. He got up to go to the fridge.

Damian sat down at the kitchen table. Just the sound of flavorless yoghurt or plain broth made his stomach churn. Slowly his dad closed the fridge door.

“Do you want something else? I can make you something else?”

He didn’t know. As hard as he tried he couldn’t really think of anything to eat. His mind went blank.

“We can do whatever you want. I can make pancakes, burgers. I’ll take you to get those pork buns.”

“Really?” He’d never known either of his parents to like them.

“Yeah, I can order them. Or we can go.”

“Uhm… okay let’s go.”

He didn’t feel like going, but his pap was so eager to go, and Damian couldn’t remember a time where either of his parents wanted to go and get pork buns. He tried to hide inside his sweatshirt, but he probably looked even more disheveled.

They both mostly listened to the radio rather than speak to one another. Damian looked out the window, taking in the differences for the first time. A new train station had been put in. Last he remembered the city had just started on it. A new restaurant had come into that empty building. He’d been gone in Spring, and it wasn’t even Christmas. And yet it felt like he’d missed years.

The restaurant was a little hole in the wall that only served buns. But they served a lot of buns and different varieties. It was weird how much he’d missed just stopping by.

“Do you know what you want?” his pap asked.

“No…” he said.

“How about we get the variety pack?”

Twelve bao, three of each flavor. Damian felt like he could eat every one, but all he got in him was a cheese bun and half a spring onion bun before his stomach revolted.

“You haven’t really been eating,” his pap said. “So you’ll need to get used to normal food.”

“I guess the rest of these are for Dad. When he gets back from work.”

His pap paused. “He might not be back tonight.”

“Why not?”

“Working. Lot to wrap up I suppose.”

His spirits dropped a little. He would’ve liked to see his dad that evening. Though that point soon became moot when he got home and immediately fell asleep again.

When he woke up it was darker out, like early evening or late morning. There was a soft knocking on his door, that he didn’t realize was happening for a second.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come in?” his dad asked.

“Yeah.”

His dad opened the door, and if there was any more proof of how long he’d been out his dad was the perfect example. Pap may have more gray hair than before, but he’d rarely seen his dad with so much as stubble. Now he had a beard that made him seem bigger and more weathered than before. His dad sat in the chair at the desk like his own body was too heavy.

“How ya feeling?”

“Fine.”

“Good, that’s good,” his dad said. “Do you want to go for a walk? Get some fresh air?”

“Sure.”

He was happy to see his dad, really see him, but his dad was a bit off. He was a bit sullen and even more nervous. It made Damian anxious just looking at him. He got dressed and they began walking. From the way the day slowly lightened Damian assumed it was fairly early in the morning still. It was freezing cold and a little bit uncomfortable, but there was no wind and no active snow so he could deal with it. His dad turned right towards the small shopping area with the grocery store and coffee shop.

“Your Pap said that you two went out yesterday?”

“Yeah just for a second.” He actually didn’t remember too much of what happened the day before. Some of it was already becoming fuzzy. “He said you were at work?”

“You could say that,” he said slowly, “I’m just happy to see you getting better. It was touch and go for a while.”

“Oh…”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you that,” he sighed, “I’ve just. It’s been hard.”

“...Sorry?”

“No, don't be sorry.” His dad ran a hand across his face, “I-I just. I was worried, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Oh.” He felt a bit guilty. It wasn’t great to see his dad so beat up.

“But all that matters is that you’re getting better.”

Damian didn’t know what getting better meant. He certainly felt more present those two days. But soon after it he’d gone to take a shower and felt like he’d been dunked in cold water. In the mirror he had his face, but also the face of the man who’d rescued him. He had Jame Barnes’ face. He’d been captured because of this face. They’d cut his hair to look like that man. He wanted his hair back. He wanted to cut it off. He wanted to change his face. Extend the smile, move the eyes, change his nose. Be a completely different person.

He had a therapist. He didn’t really recall speaking with her, but he must have since she mentioned previous appointments. He didn’t dare mention the face problem. There was a big block of his life between the hospital up north and coming home that he barely remembered. Some moments he remembered with stark clarity. A nurse checking his blood pressure, with brown hair and blue eyes. The first bout of snow at home. He’d closed the blinds when he saw it. Morgan had texted him, though he hadn’t really responded. She’d wanted how he was doing. A question he couldn’t even begin to answer, so he hadn’t.

Advice was to take every day at a time, both by his therapist and his Pap. He didn’t realize how hard that was. When he thought of prisoners and tortured people he always imagined emaciated men who were always shivering and shaking because they could never outrun their demons. And that was him. He had nightmares, bouts of strong paranoia. He lost days to his room, failing to eat and struggling to sleep and yet not really processing the world around him. There were good days, and losing them repeatedly was frustrating. He was present for only pieces of his life.

“Don’t beat yourself up on the bad days,” she said. “Focus on the good ones. Try to enjoy them. When you reward yourself for something pleasant it’s more beneficial than kicking yourself for a negative. And this is true for most things in life.”

He wanted to, he really did. But in those days of awareness he sometimes stumbled on something he didn’t want to think about. His dad was around plenty, but he wasn’t there if Damian had a panic attack in the middle of the night. Nor was he around for breakfast most days. When his dad was around, his Pap was out. Otherwise he’d talk to his dad outside. And sometimes it was difficult to be around him. His dad wore his emotions on his sleeve, and he couldn’t hide how miserable he was. And what had happened continued to bother him until his therapist suggested simply asking.

“Hey, pap?” he said one evening. “What’s wrong with dad?”

“Why do you ask?” he asked. Dinner was pizza, but they still had twenty minutes before the delivery guy would be by so his Pap had put on a documentary on the diet of the British royal family.

“Because it doesn’t seem like he’s around as much.”

“He’s…” He paused, “We’d decided that I was the most qualified to take care of you while you recover.”

“But why’s he gone?”

“Because. Because we’re separated for right now,” he said carefully.

“Separated?” His voice cracked.

“Just for right now.”

“Why though?”

“Damian, don’t worry about it. Your dad and I will figure it out.”

“But.” He sniffed and his eyes began to burn, “But I don’t want him gone.”

“Damian, sweetie.” His pap wrapped both arms around him and pulled him close. “Don’t worry about it okay? We’ll figure it out. Just worry about yourself.”

“B-but I don’t-” His hiccup turned into full blown tears that he sobbed into his pap’s sweatshirt like a two year old. He’d been doing a lot of crying and it never got any easier. He still sobbed so hard it hurt and cried so long he felt withered up and dry afterwards. Crying was so exhausting, he didn’t know how he managed to do it so often and not simply die.

He didn’t know what he’d do if his parents didn’t work it out. Separate houses, separate celebrations. His dad was a mess and his Pap closed off. Was he the problem? If he’d listened to them and been careful then maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess.

That was something he kept from his therapist too.

His birthday passed with a small celebration. Tran and Joe stopped by his house to watch movies, but that was all Damian had really felt like doing. Morgan and Nate sent him presents. There was effort, sometimes more than Damian wanted to deal with.

His dad seemed to set up a schedule of sorts. Like visitation. If Damian was up and aware then his dad would pick him up on Wednesdays and Saturdays and they’d both either go for a walk to the coffee shop or down to a place that sold burritos. As it got colder the restaurant choices broadened. Damian didn’t know where his dad was staying, but it must have been in the area. That or he was borrowing an Avenger jet for his parental visits. And when he did visit, he was always careful. Like he didn’t know what to say. Damian had questions, but it took a while for him to ask them. In the end, he didn’t have to force himself to, the question came out naturally.

“It was James who rescued me wasn’t it?” he said. They were eating Thai food outside next to a heat lamp. Not the best place to spring the question, but he was prepared to live with his choices.

His dad nearly jumped he was so surprised. “James who?”

“James Barnes?”

“Oh. Uhm, yeah. He tracked a guy heading there.”

“But he hasn’t been by since dropping me off.”

“Yeah he’s… he’s not good with this type of stuff.”

“Why’d he come find me?”

“Because I asked him to. I’m surprised you remember him. He said you didn’t say anything.”

“I saw his face,” he said, looking down at his plate. “Did he look for me ‘cause I’m his clone?”

He wasn’t looking directly at his dad’s face, but he could guess the shocked impression just by how long the pause lasted. “He told you?”

“No, I figured it out before I left for the trip.”

“How’d you figure it out?”

“I found the papers in the office when I was looking for my birth certificate.”

“Shit.” His dad sighed and rested his head in his hand. “I knew something was wrong.”

“Hm?”

“You were acting strange before you left. We assumed… I dunno what we assumed. We had all these theories. We thought you had some secret, abusive girlfriend.”

“I guess you were about a quarter right.”

His dad frowned, “How so?”

“I did have… I did have, I guess you could call him a… I dunno. I didn’t like him, but he wasn’t abusive or anything.”

His dad let out a dry laugh and dug the heel of his hand into his brow. “I can’t believe this.”

“I haven’t seen him recently.”

“Good. Damian why would you see a guy you didn’t like?”

“I can’t remember why.” He shrugged, a partial lie. “Why doesn’t James come around?”

His dad’s jaw tightened. “He… He didn’t take it well. Finding out about you. I won’t go too much into it, but he was just uncomfortable with how Hydra made you.”

“Oh.”

“He just had a hard time getting used to the idea of you.” He paused. “After you read the reports. Why didn’t you tell me or your Pap? You could’ve talked to us.”

“I guess.”

“No guess. You can talk to us.”

“I know, I just. I didn’t know what to think. I thought I was just a mission to you guys or something.”

“Oh, no Damian.” His dad reached over and squeezed his hand. “Don’t say that. You’re breaking my heart, Day.”

“I’m sorry, I just. I guess I was scared or something.”

“I know. I know.”

It turned out his dad had a lot of talking to do. Not that Damian was keeping track, but he was awake more and more often. More than perhaps either of them realized. He woke up one day and heard them talking downstairs. Neither of them were yelling so he couldn’t pick up what they were saying. It did kill him a bit to not know what was being said. More than anything he wanted his house to be normal again. He wanted his dad to complain about his video games and flirt with his Pap when he thought Damian wasn’t paying attention.

Whatever was said over the weeks had to be good, because things slowly became familiar again. He saw his dad inside the house again. Saw him at dinner, and even breakfast. Then his computer came back home and he hauled in his clothes and it was like he never left. Damian almost sighed in relief when he woke up one morning and Saturday pancakes were being made. The familiarity made him feel better. Like a piece of his old life was back.

But with his honesty came his parents'. They sat down one night and talked. As strange as Damian thought being with Leon had been, it felt even stranger to hear about his parent’s relationship with James. He hadn’t expected to hear that the degree of separation was so small. That James was actually always so close by but he’d been denied that connection. It was hard not to feel some form of betrayal at that. It was something he tried not to stew on too much, he wasn’t eager to start conflict, but he also was warned by his therapist that he had to accept that his parents made choices they thought was best at the time. If he reminded himself of that then it was easier to accept.

As much as he was curious about James, he still felt nervous on the walk to the park. His Pap had done a pretty obvious check in before he left. Damian had thought he was overreacting, but nerves suddenly shook him up as he left. He didn’t really know what he was going to say. What was there to ask? He sat there on the park bench and drew a blank.

“I brought you a drink.”

Damian startled and snapped his head around. He was expecting James to drive to the park, so he’d faced the parking lot.

“Where are you staying?” he asked as he took the very, hot drink. It practically burned his hand and had the label of the nearby coffee shop on one side.

“Downtown. I just stopped to get myself coffee before coming.”

The way he phrased it implied that what he’d given Damian was not coffee. Which ended up being the case. His first sip burned his tongue, but it was caramel so he’d drink it.

“How ya been?” James asked as he sat down across from Damian. He looked. Well he looked normal. Like all of the pictures with some gray hair for extra measure. Wearing a blue jacket and black pants and gloves. At least if that was Damian’s fate then he couldn’t exactly complain.

“Fine I guess,” he replied. “Thanks for the drink. And for saving me and stuff.”

James snorted. “No problem kid. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again. But I thought you had questions?”

“I guess I did.” He pulled up a corner of the lid and let it snap back. “I dunno, I guess I just wanted to meet you. I’ve known about you and everything.”

“From history books?”

“Yeah. And dad sometimes mentions you. But he never actually told me anything. Was that ‘cause of you?”

He frowned. “I didn’t ask them to keep it a secret. But I knew that they were.”

“That didn’t bother you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because, and I’m not exactly proud of this, but I was pretty happy to let your parents call the shots with you.”

“And why did they raise me instead of you? Pap said you were uncomfortable.”

He sighed. “That’s a way to phrase it. Look I’m not proud, but, I mean, I didn’t have anything to do with making you. I wasn’t even having sex at the time. You being here wasn’t up to me. And then you got older and I figured it was too late.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a long time to think about this.”

“I knew you’d ask about it,” he said. “And I did think about it over the years.”

While he was dating his parents. But Damian didn’t push on that, as much as he wanted to. He didn’t need details on his parents' love life.

“Look, I don’t know what we’re going to do after this. Me and your parents. After you got kidnapped they practically fell apart.”

“Yeah, what happened? I came home and dad wasn’t even in the house.”

“I don’t know what happened exactly, but from what I gathered they just fought. Steve hadn’t wanted you to go; Sam thought you’d be fine. And then you got kidnapped and Steve didn’t say anything at first, but then he started picking fights and things just devolved from there.”

“Dad did?”

“Yeah. Steve’s always had a temper and Sam couldn’t tolerate it. And when they found you Steve felt a lot of, I guess you could call it anxiety, over the emotional part of your treatment. He agreed that Sam was more capable.”

“So that’s why he moved out?”

“He moved out before they found you actually. But Sam said he had to be all in or out, like, he couldn’t just come around to give you meds everyday he had to be ready to do everything. And he didn’t know if he could do it.”

That was a bit disappointing to hear.

“He was the same with me too, kid. Steve doesn’t understand stuff like this. He doesn’t understand a problem that he can’t punch to solve. Honestly, he probably did you a favor stepping back and letting Sam handle it.”

“Oh.”

“Look, Damian, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But I can probably be around more often. If you want. I’ve kinda… I do want to make an effort now, and I hope it’s not too late for that.”

Part of Damian wanted to ask why now. What was different now than five or ten years ago? But he didn’t, because a lot was different from five years ago. A lot was different from just a year ago. He’d definitely been thinking about things more. Things were put into perspective. Some days were hard, others less so. Medications got rearranged, sometimes it seemed like they changed on a whim. It made him sort of sick to think that he might never get off of them. People talked about stuff like that, how trauma didn’t really leave, you just got better at coping with it. He wanted to ask James what he did; maybe James didn’t need any. Maybe Damian would get to that point. But that was a lot of maybe’s, and he was better off thinking of it one day at a time.

Every year they spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with his Pap’s family. Sometimes they shook things up by going to a hero event. Normally one of his parents had to do some sort of P.R. work. This year they did none of that. Damian wanted to visit his pap’s family, but when his pap asked him if he wanted to go he ended up saying no. He still was too nervous talking to people to actually attend and interact for too long. So they stayed in. His pap tried to BBQ a turkey, which was certainly interesting. He went out to get fast food with Tran and Joe, or Morgan and Nate a few times. He considered it a step in the right direction being able to do so.

December hit, and like all Decembers it was dark most of the time, and cold even more often. He’d opted out of celebrations which he kind of regretted when he watched T.V. and checked social media. Thus far, he’d only checked, and refrained from posting anything. Some messages from classmates and online friends were months old and yet he couldn’t really muster up the energy to message them back.

His parents insisted on him coming with them on whatever random chore they needed to do outside of the house. He’d been on more grocery store trips in the past two months than he’d ever been in the almost seventeen years before that. His dad would take him for walks at the park and tell him some of his stories. Pap would take him to the mall just to window shop, but sometimes to actually shop.

On a day with little snow, he got into the back of the car while his Pap drove and his dad kept flipping through songs to play on the bluetooth speaker. People were out of course, but DC tended to be much more empty during the holidays since about half of its residents returned to their home states. They drove through pockets of traffic down to the shopping area which was predictably packed.

“I am going to go buy a few things for my sister. Damian, why don’t you go with your dad?”

“Are you trying to get me away so you can buy for me?” he asked.

“No. You can come with me if you want.” He shrugged.

“He’s just going to be getting make-up,” his dad said.

“Fine, I’ll go with you.”

His pap broke off to head over to a local boutique while he and his dad began strolling. His dad probably didn’t have any other shopping to do anyway, since he got his grandparents their yearly artisanal hot sauce and mixed dried fruit. So they window shopped. All the stores had displays out. Some of the food stores were handing out desserts to sample. He happily took two brownie bites from the older woman who thought he was too skinny and followed his dad down.

The first store they entered was not clothing or shoes or even electronics, but a pet store. Damian almost didn’t realize his dad was heading towards the entrance until they walked through the front door. There was a sale going and some of the pets were out with little cards listing their price, age, personality, and any special care instructions.

“Day,” his dad said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders even though Damian was still too tall for that. “Your Pap and I thought that you might like to get a pet.”

“What?”

“A pet. If you’re up for it. Just something normal; no tarantulas.”

“Are you serious?” He felt a rush of giddiness.

“Yes, I’m serious.” His dad let him go, “Figured it would be good for you. Give you a buddy. Something to take care of. But only do it if you think you can take care of it.”

“No-no! I want one. I can get any?”

“Yes. Whatever they have here, and then we’ll get supplies.”

It was a little overwhelming to think of having a pet, but Damian wasn’t going to pass up the chance at a pet. On the mammal side they had many types. There were smaller dogs in smaller cages and a select few bigger dogs. Hamsters occupied a corner. And along the far wall there were cats, some of the ones they clearly wanted to send out were given special place cards in front of their cages.

Momo  
8 years old  
I’m a bit older, and I like a calm environment. I’ll be happy in any home  
with few young children and plenty of spots to nap  
I still have plenty of time left to love a family

KitKat  
4 years old  
I’ve had a hard life, but I’m young and affectionate. Any home with a   
lot of love will be perfect.

Jun  
6 years old  
I am very curious, with a big heart. Sometimes I like to get into trouble  
because I enjoy attention. I’m looking for a steady home.

Poppy  
10 years old  
My life has been long, and I’m looking for a happy home. I spend most  
of my time sleeping due to my poor hips. I’d like a calm and loving  
family to spend my last years with.

There were two more cats in the normal cages, both with names but no cards. Damian looked at them, but they looked healthy and normal. The four with cards were not that way. KitKat had a scar, and Jun was missing an eye. Poppy and Momo had warnings that they needed to go to families with no young children or other pets. He wanted to rescue one of them.

Momo was a white cat. Nothing really out of place besides the warning. Poppy was yellow, and when she yawned Damian saw that she was missing a few of her teeth. Jun’s missing eye looked like it had been painful at one point, but it was now stitched up and clean. KitKat’s scar went from the top of his neck to halfway down his back. Most of them were asleep or lounging. Jun was the only one up and observing the people passing by.

Damian didn’t really have much of a reason to choose Jun besides the fact that Jun was awake and observing him as he scanned the wall.

“He’s a sweetheart,” the saleswoman said. She moved Jun from his original carrier to the one his dad picked out. “Here’s a guideline for acclimating him to his new home. And another pamphlet for cat care.”

“Thank you,” is dad said. He dumped a few toys, a litter box, and sand on the conveyor belt while Damian held Jun in his cage. Damian wanted to get home and open the cage. Pull out one of the toys and play with his new cat.

His Pap was waiting outside the store with a small bag of some random make-up product for Damian’s aunt. “I knew you would get a cat.”

“Didn’t even look at anything else,” his dad said.

“What’s its name?”

“Jun,” he answered. “And thanks for this.”

“Just remember you have to take care of him.,” his dad said. “You don’t want him to get sick.”

“I know.”

He read the pamphlets on the way home so he had a good idea of what to expect. Jun did live up to his little card, once the door was opened he began exploring the house. Hopping on tables and counters only to be shooed off by his paps. The litter box went in the living room so Damian wouldn’t forget about it and his bowl went near the dinner table.

Jun was a rowdy cat. He liked to climb on furniture and wake Damian up in the middle of the night. He’d start screeching at six in the morning and wouldn’t stop until he was fed and sometimes followed people around if they had food in their hands and then not eat when they gave him a taste. His dad called him an evil little ghost, but even he ended up warming up to Jun in the end since Jun, despite being rambunctious, was still an affectionate cat. And even Captain America couldn’t resist a fluffy belly.


End file.
